Does Alexis de Tocqueville’s argument about the tyranny of the majority reflect American democracy today? Provide examples to support your answer.
ConnorGL
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
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CHAPTER 10
Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
Figure 10.1 In President’s Levee, or all Creation going to the White House,
Washington (1841), by Robert
Cruikshank, the artist depicts Andrew Jackson’s inauguration in 1829, with crowds
surging into the White House to
join the celebrations. Rowdy revelers destroyed many White House furnishings in
their merriment. A new political era
of democracy had begun, one characterized by the rule of the majority.
Chapter Outline
10.1 A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson
10.2 The Rise of American Democracy
10.3 The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War
10.4 Indian Removal
10.5 The Tyranny and Triumph of the Majority
Introduction
The most extraordinary political development in the years before the Civil War was
the rise of American
democracy. Whereas the founders envisioned the United States as a republic, not a
democracy, and had
placed safeguards such as the Electoral College in the 1787 Constitution to prevent
simple majority rule,
the early 1820s saw many Americans embracing majority rule and rejecting old forms
of deference that
were based on elite ideas of virtue, learning, and family lineage.
A new breed of politicians learned to harness the magic of the many by appealing to
the resentments, fears,
and passions of ordinary citizens to win elections. The charismatic Andrew Jackson
gained a reputation
as a fighter and defender of American expansion, emerging as the quintessential
figure leading the rise of
American democracy. In the image above (Figure 10.1), crowds flock to the White
House to celebrate his
inauguration as president. While earlier inaugurations had been reserved for
Washington’s political elite,
Jackson’s was an event for the people, so much so that the pushing throngs caused
thousands of dollars of
damage to White House property. Characteristics of modern American democracy,
including the turbulent
nature of majority rule, first appeared during the Age of Jackson.
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10.1 A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew
Jackson
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain and illustrate the new style of American politics in the 1820s
• Describe the policies of John Quincy Adams’s presidency and explain the
political
divisions that resulted
In the 1820s, American political culture gave way to the democratic urges of the
citizenry. Political leaders
and parties rose to popularity by championing the will of the people, pushing the
country toward a future
in which a wider swath of citizens gained a political voice. However, this
expansion of political power was
limited to white men; women, free blacks, and Indians remained—or grew
increasingly—disenfranchised
by the American political system.
THE DECLINE OF FEDERALISM
The first party system in the United States shaped the political contest between
the Federalists and
the Democratic-Republicans. The Federalists, led by Washington, Hamilton, and
Adams, dominated
American politics in the 1790s. After the election of Thomas Jefferson—the
Revolution of 1800—the
Democratic-Republicans gained ascendance. The gradual decline of the Federalist
Party is evident in its
losses in the presidential contests that occurred between 1800 and 1820. After
1816, in which Democratic-
Republican James Monroe defeated his Federalist rival Rufus King, the Federalists
never ran another
presidential candidate.
Before the 1820s, a code of deference had underwritten the republic’s political
order. Deference was
the practice of showing respect for individuals who had distinguished themselves
through military
accomplishments, educational attainment, business success, or family pedigree. Such
individuals were
Figure 10.2
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
275
members of what many Americans in the early republic agreed was a natural
aristocracy. Deference shown
to them dovetailed with republicanism and its emphasis on virtue, the ideal of
placing the common good
above narrow self-interest. Republican statesmen in the 1780s and 1790s expected
and routinely received
deferential treatment from others, and ordinary Americans deferred to their “social
betters” as a matter of
course.
For the generation who lived through the American Revolution, for instance, George
Washington
epitomized republican virtue, entitling him to great deference from his countrymen.
His judgment and
decisions were considered beyond reproach. An Anglican minister named Mason Locke
Weems wrote the
classic tale of Washington’s unimpeachable virtue in his 1800 book, The Life of
Washington. Generations of
nineteenth-century American children read its fictional story of a youthful
Washington chopping down
one of his father’s cherry trees and, when confronted by his father, confessing: “I
cannot tell a lie”
(Figure 10.3). The story spoke to Washington’s unflinching honesty and integrity,
encouraging readers to
remember the deference owed to such towering national figures.
Figure 10.3 “Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie: I Cut the Tree” (1867) by John McRae,
after a painting by George Gorgas
White, illustrates Mason Locke Weems’s tale of Washington’s honesty and integrity
as revealed in the incident of the
cherry tree. Although it was fiction, this story about Washington taught
generations of children about the importance
of virtue.
Washington and those who celebrated his role as president established a standard
for elite, virtuous
leadership that cast a long shadow over subsequent presidential administrations.
The presidents who
followed Washington shared the first president’s pedigree. With the exception of
John Adams, who
was from Massachusetts, all the early presidents—Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
and James
Monroe—were members of Virginia’s elite slaveholder aristocracy.
DEMOCRATIC REFORMS
In the early 1820s, deference to pedigree began to wane in American society. A new
type of deference—to
the will of the majority and not to a ruling class—took hold. The spirit of
democratic reform became most
evident in the widespread belief that all white men, regardless of whether they
owned property, had the
right to participate in elections.
Before the 1820s, many state constitutions had imposed property qualifications for
voting as a means to
keep democratic tendencies in check. However, as Federalist ideals fell out of
favor, ordinary men from
the middle and lower classes increasingly questioned the idea that property
ownership was an indication
of virtue. They argued for universal manhood suffrage, or voting rights for all
white male adults.
New states adopted constitutions that did not contain property qualifications for
voting, a move designed
to stimulate migration across their borders. Vermont and Kentucky, admitted to the
Union in 1791 and
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1792 respectively, granted the right to vote to all white men regardless of whether
they owned property
or paid taxes. Ohio’s state constitution placed a minor taxpaying requirement on
voters but otherwise
allowed for expansive white male suffrage. Alabama, admitted to the Union in 1819,
eliminated property
qualifications for voting in its state constitution. Two other new states, Indiana
(1816) and Illinois (1818),
also extended the right to vote to white men regardless of property. Initially, the
new state of Mississippi
(1817) restricted voting to white male property holders, but in 1832 it eliminated
this provision.
In Connecticut, Federalist power largely collapsed in 1818 when the state held a
constitutional convention.
The new constitution granted the right to vote to all white men who paid taxes or
served in the militia.
Similarly, New York amended its state constitution in 1821–1822 and removed the
property qualifications
for voting.
Expanded voting rights did not extend to women, Indians, or free blacks in the
North. Indeed, race
replaced property qualifications as the criterion for voting rights. American
democracy had a decidedly
racist orientation; a white majority limited the rights of black minorities. New
Jersey explicitly restricted
the right to vote to white men only. Connecticut passed a law in 1814 taking the
right to vote away from
free black men and restricting suffrage to white men only. By the 1820s, 80 percent
of the white male
population could vote in New York State elections. No other state had expanded
suffrage so dramatically.
At the same time, however, New York effectively disenfranchised free black men in
1822 (black men had
had the right to vote under the 1777 constitution) by requiring that “men of color”
must possess property
over the value of $250.
PARTY POLITICS AND THE ELECTION OF 1824
In addition to expanding white men’s right to vote, democratic currents also led to
a new style of political
party organization, most evident in New York State in the years after the War of
1812. Under the leadership
of Martin Van Buren, New York’s “Bucktail” Republican faction (so named because
members wore a deer’s
tail on their hats, a symbol of membership in the Tammany Society) gained political
power by cultivating
loyalty to the will of the majority, not to an elite family or renowned figure. The
Bucktails emphasized a
pragmatic approach. For example, at first they opposed the Erie Canal project, but
when the popularity of
the massive transportation venture became clear, they supported it.
One of the Bucktails’ greatest achievements in New York came in the form of
revisions to the state
constitution in the 1820s. Under the original constitution, a Council of
Appointments selected local officials
such as sheriffs and county clerks. The Bucktails replaced this process with a
system of direct elections,
which meant thousands of jobs immediately became available to candidates who had
the support of the
majority. In practice, Van Buren’s party could nominate and support their own
candidates based on their
loyalty to the party. In this way, Van Buren helped create a political machine of
disciplined party members
who prized loyalty above all else, a harbinger of future patronage politics in the
United States. This system
of rewarding party loyalists is known as the spoils system (from the expression,
“To the victor belong the
spoils”). Van Buren’s political machine helped radically transform New York
politics.
Party politics also transformed the national political landscape, and the election
of 1824 proved a turning
point in American politics. With tens of thousands of new voters, the older system
of having members of
Congress form congressional caucuses to determine who would run no longer worked.
The new voters
had regional interests and voted on them. For the first time, the popular vote
mattered in a presidential
election. Electors were chosen by popular vote in eighteen states, while the six
remaining states used the
older system in which state legislatures chose electors.
With the caucus system defunct, the presidential election of 1824 featured five
candidates, all of whom ran
as Democratic-Republicans (the Federalists having ceased to be a national political
force). The crowded
field included John Quincy Adams, the son of the second president, John Adams.
Candidate Adams had
broken with the Federalists in the early 1800s and served on various diplomatic
missions, including the
mission to secure peace with Great Britain in 1814. He represented New England. A
second candidate,
John C. Calhoun from South Carolina, had served as secretary of war and represented
the slaveholding
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
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South. He dropped out of the presidential race to run for vice president. A third
candidate, Henry Clay,
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, hailed from Kentucky and represented
the western states. He
favored an active federal government committed to internal improvements, such as
roads and canals, to
bolster national economic development and settlement of the West. William H.
Crawford, a slaveholder
from Georgia, suffered a stroke in 1823 that left him largely incapacitated, but he
ran nonetheless and
had the backing of the New York machine headed by Van Buren. Andrew Jackson, the
famed “hero of
New Orleans,” rounded out the field. Jackson had very little formal education, but
he was popular for his
military victories in the War of 1812 and in wars against the Creek and the
Seminole. He had been elected
to the Senate in 1823, and his popularity soared as pro-Jackson newspapers sang the
praises of the courage
and daring of the Tennessee slaveholder (Figure 10.4).
Figure 10.4 The two most popular presidential candidates in the election of 1824
were Andrew Jackson (a), who
won the popular vote but failed to secure the requisite number of votes in the
Electoral College, and John Quincy
Adams (b), who emerged victorious after a contentious vote in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
Results from the eighteen states where the popular vote determined the electoral
vote gave Jackson
the election, with 152,901 votes to Adams’s 114,023, Clay’s 47,217, and Crawford’s
46,979. The Electoral
College, however, was another matter. Of the 261 electoral votes, Jackson needed
131 or better to win but
secured only 99. Adams won 84, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. Because Jackson did not
receive a majority
vote from the Electoral College, the election was decided following the terms of
the Twelfth Amendment,
which stipulated that when a candidate did not receive a majority of electoral
votes, the election went to
the House of Representatives, where each state would provide one vote. House
Speaker Clay did not want
to see his rival, Jackson, become president and therefore worked within the House
to secure the presidency
for Adams, convincing many to cast their vote for the New Englander. Clay’s efforts
paid off; despite not
having won the popular vote, John Quincy Adams was certified by the House as the
next president. Once
in office, he elevated Henry Clay to the post of secretary of state.
Jackson and his supporters cried foul. To them, the election of Adams reeked of
anti-democratic
corruption. So too did the appointment of Clay as secretary of state. John C.
Calhoun labeled the whole
affair a “corrupt bargain” (Figure 10.5). Everywhere, Jackson supporters vowed
revenge against the anti-
majoritarian result of 1824.
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Figure 10.5 John C. Calhoun (a) believed that the assistance Henry Clay (b) gave to
John Quincy Adams in the
U.S. House of Representatives’ vote to decide the presidential election of 1824
indicated that a “corrupt bargain” had
been made.
THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Secretary of State Clay championed what was known as the American System of high
tariffs, a national
bank, and federally sponsored internal improvements of canals and roads. Once in
office, President Adams
embraced Clay’s American System and proposed a national university and naval
academy to train future
leaders of the republic. The president’s opponents smelled elitism in these
proposals and pounced on what
they viewed as the administration’s catering to a small privileged class at the
expense of ordinary citizens.
Clay also envisioned a broad range of internal transportation improvements. Using
the proceeds from
land sales in the West, Adams endorsed the creation of roads and canals to
facilitate commerce and the
advance of settlement in the West. Many in Congress vigorously opposed federal
funding of internal
improvements, citing among other reasons that the Constitution did not give the
federal government the
power to fund these projects. However, in the end, Adams succeeded in extending the
Cumberland Road
into Ohio (a federal highway project). He also broke ground for the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal on July 4,
1828.
Click and Explore
Visit the Cumberland Road Project
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15cumberland)
and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National
Historic Park
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15OandCcanal) to
learn more about transportation
developments in the first half of the nineteenth
century. How were these two projects
important for westward expansion?
Tariffs, which both Clay and Adams promoted, were not a novel idea; since the birth
of the republic they
had been seen as a way to advance domestic manufacturing by making imports more
expensive. Congress
had approved a tariff in 1789, for instance, and Alexander Hamilton had proposed a
protective tariff in
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
279
1790. Congress also passed tariffs in 1816 and 1824. Clay spearheaded the drive for
the federal government
to impose high tariffs to help bolster domestic manufacturing. If imported goods
were more expensive
than domestic goods, then people would buy American-made goods.
President Adams wished to promote manufacturing, especially in his home region of
New England. To
that end, in 1828 he proposed a high tariff on imported goods, amounting to 50
percent of their value. The
tariff raised questions about how power should be distributed, causing a fiery
debate between those who
supported states’ rights and those who supported the expanded power of the federal
government (Figure
10.6). Those who championed states’ rights denounced the 1828 measure as the Tariff
of Abominations,
clear evidence that the federal government favored one region, in this case the
North, over another, the
South. They made their case by pointing out that the North had an expanding
manufacturing base while
the South did not. Therefore, the South imported far more manufactured goods than
the North, causing
the tariff to fall most heavily on the southern states.
Figure 10.6 The Monkey System or ‘Every one for himself at the expense of his
neighbor!!!!!!!!’ (1831) critiqued
Henry Clay’s proposed tariff and system of internal improvements. In this political
cartoon by Edward Williams Clay,
four caged monkeys labeled “Home,” “Consumption,” “Internal,” and “Improv”
(improvements)—different parts of the
nation’s economy—steal each other’s food while Henry Clay, in the foreground,
extols the virtues of his “grand
original American System.” (credit: Project Gutenberg Archives)
The 1828 tariff generated additional fears among southerners. In particular, it
suggested to them that the
federal government would unilaterally take steps that hurt the South. This line of
reasoning led some
southerners to fear that the very foundation of the South—slavery—could come under
attack from a
hostile northern majority in Congress. The spokesman for this southern view was
President Adams’s vice
president, John C. Calhoun.
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DEFINING "AMERICAN"
John C. Calhoun on the Tariff of 1828
Vice President John C. Calhoun, angry about the passage of the Tariff
of 1828, anonymously wrote a
report titled “South Carolina Exposition and Protest” (later known as
“Calhoun’s Exposition”) for the South
Carolina legislature. As a native of South Carolina, Calhoun
articulated the fear among many southerners
that the federal government could exercise undue power over the states.
If it be conceded, as it must be by every one who is the least
conversant with our institutions,
that the sovereign powers delegated are divided between the
General and State
Governments, and that the latter hold their portion by the same
tenure as the former, it would
seem impossible to deny to the States the right of deciding on
the infractions of their powers,
and the proper remedy to be applied for their correction. The
right of judging, in such cases,
is an essential attribute of sovereignty, of which the States
cannot be divested without losing
their sovereignty itself, and being reduced to a subordinate
corporate condition. In fact, to
divide power, and to give to one of the parties the exclusive
right of judging of the portion
allotted to each, is, in reality, not to divide it at all; and
to reserve such exclusive right to the
General Government (it matters not by what department) to be
exercised, is to convert it, in
fact, into a great consolidated government, with unlimited
powers, and to divest the States, in
reality, of all their rights, It is impossible to understand
the force of terms, and to deny so plain
a conclusion.
—John C. Calhoun, “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” 1828
What is Calhoun’s main point of protest? What does he say about the
sovereignty of the states?
10.2 The Rise of American Democracy
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Describe the key points of the election of 1828
• Explain the scandals of Andrew Jackson’s first term in office
A turning point in American political history occurred in 1828, which witnessed the
election of Andrew
Jackson over the incumbent John Quincy Adams. While democratic practices had been
in ascendance since
1800, the year also saw the further unfolding of a democratic spirit in the United
States. Supporters of
Jackson called themselves Democrats or the Democracy, giving birth to the
Democratic Party. Political
authority appeared to rest with the majority as never before.
THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1828
During the 1800s, democratic reforms made steady progress with the abolition of
property qualifications
for voting and the birth of new forms of political party organization. The 1828
campaign pushed new
democratic practices even further and highlighted the difference between the
Jacksonian expanded
electorate and the older, exclusive Adams style. A slogan of the day, “Adams who
can write/Jackson who
can fight,” captured the contrast between Adams the aristocrat and Jackson the
frontiersman.
The 1828 campaign differed significantly from earlier presidential contests because
of the party
organization that promoted Andrew Jackson. Jackson and his supporters reminded
voters of the “corrupt
bargain” of 1824. They framed it as the work of a small group of political elites
deciding who would
lead the nation, acting in a self-serving manner and ignoring the will of the
majority (Figure 10.7). From
Nashville, Tennessee, the Jackson campaign organized supporters around the nation
through editorials in
partisan newspapers and other publications. Pro-Jackson newspapers heralded the
“hero of New Orleans”
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
281
while denouncing Adams. Though he did not wage an election campaign filled with
public appearances,
Jackson did give one major campaign speech in New Orleans on January 8, the
anniversary of the defeat
of the British in 1815. He also engaged in rounds of discussion with politicians
who came to his home, the
Hermitage, in Nashville.
Figure 10.7 The bitter rivalry between Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay was
exacerbated by the “corrupt bargain” of
1824, which Jackson made much of during his successful presidential campaign in
1828. This drawing, published in
the 1830s during the debates over the future of the Second Bank of the United
States, shows Clay sewing up
Jackson’s mouth while the “cure for calumny [slander]” protrudes from his pocket.
At the local level, Jackson’s supporters worked to bring in as many new voters as
possible. Rallies, parades,
and other rituals further broadcast the message that Jackson stood for the common
man against the corrupt
elite backing Adams and Clay. Democratic organizations called Hickory Clubs, a
tribute to Jackson’s
nickname, Old Hickory, also worked tirelessly to ensure his election.
In November 1828, Jackson won an overwhelming victory over Adams, capturing 56
percent of the
popular vote and 68 percent of the electoral vote. As in 1800, when Jefferson had
won over the Federalist
incumbent John Adams, the presidency passed to a new political party, the
Democrats. The election was
the climax of several decades of expanding democracy in the United States and the
end of the older politics
of deference.
Click and Explore
Visit The Hermitage
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15Hermitage) to explore a
timeline of Andrew Jackson’s life and career. How do
you think the events of his
younger life affected the trajectory of his
political career?
SCANDAL IN THE PRESIDENCY
Amid revelations of widespread fraud, including the disclosure that some $300,000
was missing from the
Treasury Department, Jackson removed almost 50 percent of appointed civil officers,
which allowed him
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to handpick their replacements. This replacement of appointed federal officials is
called rotation in office.
Lucrative posts, such as postmaster and deputy postmaster, went to party loyalists,
especially in places
where Jackson’s support had been weakest, such as New England. Some Democratic
newspaper editors
who had supported Jackson during the campaign also gained public jobs.
Jackson’s opponents were angered and took to calling the practice the spoils
system, after the policies of
Van Buren’s Bucktail Republican Party. The rewarding of party loyalists with
government jobs resulted
in spectacular instances of corruption. Perhaps the most notorious occurred in New
York City, where a
Jackson appointee made off with over $1 million. Such examples seemed proof
positive that the Democrats
were disregarding merit, education, and respectability in decisions about the
governing of the nation.
In addition to dealing with rancor over rotation in office, the Jackson
administration became embroiled
in a personal scandal known as the Petticoat affair. This incident exacerbated the
division between the
president’s team and the insider class in the nation’s capital, who found the new
arrivals from Tennessee
lacking in decorum and propriety. At the center of the storm was Margaret (“Peggy”)
O’Neal, a well-
known socialite in Washington, DC (Figure 10.8). O’Neal cut a striking figure and
had connections to the
republic’s most powerful men. She married John Timberlake, a naval officer, and
they had three children.
Rumors abounded, however, about her involvement with John Eaton, a U.S. senator
from Tennessee who
had come to Washington in 1818.
Figure 10.8 Peggy O’Neal was so well known that advertisers used her image to sell
products to the public. In this
anonymous nineteenth-century cigar-box lid, her portrait is flanked by vignettes
showing her scandalous past. On the
left, President Andrew Jackson presents her with flowers. On the right, two men
fight a duel for her.
Timberlake committed suicide in 1828, setting off a flurry of rumors that he had
been distraught over
his wife’s reputed infidelities. Eaton and Mrs. Timberlake married soon after, with
the full approval of
President Jackson. The so-called Petticoat affair divided Washington society. Many
Washington socialites
snubbed the new Mrs. Eaton as a woman of low moral character. Among those who would
have nothing
to do with her was Vice President John C. Calhoun’s wife, Floride. Calhoun fell out
of favor with President
Jackson, who defended Peggy Eaton and derided those who would not socialize with
her, declaring she
was “as chaste as a virgin.” (Jackson had personal reasons for defending Eaton: he
drew a parallel between
Eaton’s treatment and that of his late wife, Rachel, who had been subjected to
attacks on her reputation
related to her first marriage, which had ended in divorce.) Martin Van Buren, who
defended the Eatons
and organized social gatherings with them, became close to Jackson, who came to
rely on a group of
informal advisers that included Van Buren and was dubbed the Kitchen Cabinet. This
select group of
presidential supporters highlights the importance of party loyalty to Jackson and
the Democratic Party.
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10.3 The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the factors that contributed to the Nullification Crisis
• Discuss the origins and creation of the Whig Party
The crisis over the Tariff of 1828 continued into the 1830s and highlighted one of
the currents of democracy
in the Age of Jackson: namely, that many southerners believed a democratic majority
could be harmful
to their interests. These southerners saw themselves as an embattled minority and
claimed the right of
states to nullify federal laws that appeared to threaten state sovereignty. Another
undercurrent was the
resentment and anger of the majority against symbols of elite privilege, especially
powerful financial
institutions like the Second Bank of the United States.
THE NULLIFICATION CRISIS
The Tariff of 1828 had driven Vice President Calhoun to pen his “South Carolina
Exposition and Protest,”
in which he argued that if a national majority acted against the interest of a
regional minority, then
individual states could void—or nullify—federal law. By the early 1830s, the battle
over the tariff took on
new urgency as the price of cotton continued to fall. In 1818, cotton had been
thirty-one cents per pound.
By 1831, it had sunk to eight cents per pound. While production of cotton had
soared during this time
and this increase contributed to the decline in prices, many southerners blamed
their economic problems
squarely on the tariff for raising the prices they had to pay for imported goods
while their own income
shrank.
Resentment of the tariff was linked directly to the issue of slavery, because the
tariff demonstrated
the use of federal power. Some southerners feared the federal government would next
take additional
action against the South, including the abolition of slavery. The theory of
nullification, or the voiding
of unwelcome federal laws, provided wealthy slaveholders, who were a minority in
the United States,
with an argument for resisting the national government if it acted contrary to
their interests. James
Hamilton, who served as governor of South Carolina in the early 1830s, denounced
the “despotic majority
that oppresses us.” Nullification also raised the specter of secession; aggrieved
states at the mercy of an
aggressive majority would be forced to leave the Union.
On the issue of nullification, South Carolina stood alone. Other southern states
backed away from what
they saw as the extremism behind the idea. President Jackson did not make the
repeal of the 1828 tariff a
priority and denied the nullifiers’ arguments. He and others, including former
President Madison, argued
that Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gave Congress the power to “lay and
collect taxes, duties,
imposts, and excises.” Jackson pledged to protect the Union against those who would
try to tear it apart
over the tariff issue. “The union shall be preserved,” he declared in 1830.
To deal with the crisis, Jackson advocated a reduction in tariff rates. The Tariff
of 1832, passed in the
summer, lowered the rates on imported goods, a move designed to calm southerners.
It did not have
the desired effect, however, and Calhoun’s nullifiers still claimed their right to
override federal law. In
November, South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring the 1828
and 1832 tariffs
null and void in the Palmetto State. Jackson responded, however, by declaring in
the December 1832
Nullification Proclamation that a state did not have the power to void a federal
law.
With the states and the federal government at an impasse, civil war seemed a real
possibility. The next
governor of South Carolina, Robert Hayne, called for a force of ten thousand
volunteers (Figure 10.9) to
defend the state against any federal action. At the same time, South Carolinians
who opposed the nullifiers
told Jackson that eight thousand men stood ready to defend the Union. Congress
passed the Force Bill
of 1833, which gave the federal government the right to use federal troops to
ensure compliance with
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federal law. The crisis—or at least the prospect of armed conflict in South
Carolina—was defused by the
Compromise Tariff of 1833, which reduced tariff rates considerably. Nullifiers in
South Carolina accepted
it, but in a move that demonstrated their inflexibility, they nullified the Force
Bill.
Figure 10.9 The governor of South Carolina, Robert Hayne, elected in 1832, was a
strong proponent of states’
rights and the theory of nullification.
The Nullification Crisis illustrated the growing tensions in American democracy: an
aggrieved minority of
elite, wealthy slaveholders taking a stand against the will of a democratic
majority; an emerging sectional
divide between South and North over slavery; and a clash between those who believed
in free trade and
those who believed in protective tariffs to encourage the nation’s economic growth.
These tensions would
color the next three decades of politics in the United States.
THE BANK WAR
Congress established the Bank of the United States in 1791 as a key pillar of
Alexander Hamilton’s financial
program, but its twenty-year charter expired in 1811. Congress, swayed by the
majority’s hostility to the
bank as an institution catering to the wealthy elite, did not renew the charter at
that time. In its place,
Congress approved a new national bank—the Second Bank of the United States—in 1816.
It too had a
twenty-year charter, set to expire in 1836.
The Second Bank of the United States was created to stabilize the banking system.
More than two hundred
banks existed in the United States in 1816, and almost all of them issued paper
money. In other words,
citizens faced a bewildering welter of paper money with no standard value. In fact,
the problem of paper
money had contributed significantly to the Panic of 1819.
In the 1820s, the national bank moved into a magnificent new building in
Philadelphia. However, despite
Congress’s approval of the Second Bank of the United States, a great many people
continued to view it as
tool of the wealthy, an anti-democratic force. President Jackson was among them; he
had faced economic
crises of his own during his days speculating in land, an experience that had made
him uneasy about paper
money. To Jackson, hard currency—that is, gold or silver—was the far better
alternative. The president
also personally disliked the bank’s director, Nicholas Biddle.
A large part of the allure of mass democracy for politicians was the opportunity to
capture the anger and
resentment of ordinary Americans against what they saw as the privileges of a few.
One of the leading
opponents of the bank was Thomas Hart Benton, a senator from Missouri, who declared
that the bank
served “to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer.” The self-important
statements of Biddle, who
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claimed to have more power that President Jackson, helped fuel sentiments like
Benton’s.
In the reelection campaign of 1832, Jackson’s opponents in Congress, including
Henry Clay, hoped to use
their support of the bank to their advantage. In January 1832, they pushed for
legislation that would re-
charter it, even though its charter was not scheduled to expire until 1836. When
the bill for re-chartering
passed and came to President Jackson, he used his executive authority to veto the
measure.
The defeat of the Second Bank of the United States demonstrates Jackson’s ability
to focus on the specific
issues that aroused the democratic majority. Jackson understood people’s anger and
distrust toward
the bank, which stood as an emblem of special privilege and big government. He
skillfully used that
perception to his advantage, presenting the bank issue as a struggle of ordinary
people against a rapacious
elite class who cared nothing for the public and pursued only their own selfish
ends. As Jackson portrayed
it, his was a battle for small government and ordinary Americans. His stand against
what bank opponents
called the “monster bank” proved very popular, and the Democratic press lionized
him for it (Figure
10.10). In the election of 1832, Jackson received nearly 53 percent of the popular
vote against his opponent
Henry Clay.
Figure 10.10 In General Jackson Slaying the Many Headed Monster (1836), the artist,
Henry R. Robinson, depicts
President Jackson using a cane marked “Veto” to battle a many-headed snake
representing state banks, which
supported the national bank. Battling alongside Martin Van Buren and Jack Downing,
Jackson addresses the largest
head, that of Nicholas Biddle, the director of the national bank: “Biddle thou
Monster Avaunt [go away]!! . . .”
Jackson’s veto was only one part of the war on the “monster bank.” In 1833, the
president removed the
deposits from the national bank and placed them in state banks. Biddle, the bank’s
director, retaliated by
restricting loans to the state banks, resulting in a reduction of the money supply.
The financial turmoil
only increased when Jackson issued an executive order known as the Specie Circular,
which required that
western land sales be conducted using gold or silver only. Unfortunately, this
policy proved a disaster
when the Bank of England, the source of much of the hard currency borrowed by
American businesses,
dramatically cut back on loans to the United States. Without the flow of hard
currency from England,
American depositors drained the gold and silver from their own domestic banks,
making hard currency
scarce. Adding to the economic distress of the late 1830s, cotton prices plummeted,
contributing to a
financial crisis called the Panic of 1837. This economic panic would prove
politically useful for Jackson’s
opponents in the coming years and Van Buren, elected president in 1836, would pay
the price for Jackson’s
hard-currency preferences.
WHIGS
Jackson’s veto of the bank and his Specie Circular helped galvanize opposition
forces into a new political
party, the Whigs, a faction that began to form in 1834. The name was significant;
opponents of Jackson
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saw him as exercising tyrannical power, so they chose the name Whig after the
eighteenth-century political
party that resisted the monarchical power of King George III. One political cartoon
dubbed the president
“King Andrew the First” and displayed Jackson standing on the Constitution, which
has been ripped to
shreds (Figure 10.11).
Figure 10.11 This anonymous 1833 political caricature (a) represents President
Andrew Jackson as a despotic
ruler, holding a scepter in one hand and a veto in the other. Contrast the image of
“King Andrew” with a political
cartoon from 1831 (b) of Jackson overseeing a scene of uncontrollable chaos as he
falls from a hickory chair “coming
to pieces at last.”
Whigs championed an active federal government committed to internal improvements,
including a
national bank. They made their first national appearance in the presidential
election of 1836, a contest
that pitted Jackson’s handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren, against a field of
several Whig candidates.
Indeed, the large field of Whig candidates indicated the new party’s lack of
organization compared to the
Democrats. This helped Van Buren, who carried the day in the Electoral College. As
the effects of the Panic
of 1837 continued to be felt for years afterward, the Whig press pinned the blame
for the economic crisis
on Van Buren and the Democrats.
Click and Explore
Explore a Library of Congress
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15PolPrints) collection
of 1830s political cartoons from the pages of
Harper’s Weekly to learn more about how
Andrew Jackson was viewed by the public in that
era.
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10.4 Indian Removal
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain the legal wrangling that surrounded the Indian Removal Act
• Describe how depictions of Indians in popular culture helped lead to Indian
removal
Pro-Jackson newspapers touted the president as a champion of opening land for white
settlement and
moving native inhabitants beyond the boundaries of “American civilization.” In this
effort, Jackson
reflected majority opinion: most Americans believed Indians had no place in the
white republic. Jackson’s
animosity toward Indians ran deep. He had fought against the Creek in 1813 and
against the Seminole
in 1817, and his reputation and popularity rested in large measure on his firm
commitment to remove
Indians from states in the South. The 1830 Indian Removal Act and subsequent
displacement of the Creek,
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Cherokee tribes of the Southeast fulfilled the
vision of a white nation
and became one of the identifying characteristics of the Age of Jackson.
INDIANS IN POPULAR CULTURE
Popular culture in the first half of the nineteenth century reflected the aversion
to Indians that was
pervasive during the Age of Jackson. Jackson skillfully played upon this racial
hatred to engage the United
States in a policy of ethnic cleansing, eradicating the Indian presence from the
land to make way for white
civilization.
In an age of mass democracy, powerful anti-Indian sentiments found expression in
mass culture, shaping
popular perceptions. James Fenimore Cooper’s very popular historical novel, The
Last of the Mohicans,
published in 1826 as part of his Leatherstocking series, told the tale of Nathaniel
“Natty” Bumppo (aka
Hawkeye), who lived among Indians but had been born to white parents. Cooper
provides a romantic
version of the French and Indian War in which Natty helps the British against the
French and the feral,
bloodthirsty Huron. Natty endures even as his Indian friends die, including the
noble Uncas, the last
Mohican, in a narrative that dovetailed with most people’s approval of Indian
removal.
Indians also made frequent appearances in art. George Catlin produced many
paintings of native peoples,
which he offered as true representations despite routinely emphasizing their
supposed savage nature. The
Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony (Figure 10.12) is one example. Scholars
have long questioned
the accuracy of this portrayal of a rite of passage among the Mandan people.
Accuracy aside, the painting
captured the imaginations of white viewers, reinforcing their disgust at the
savagery of Indians.
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Figure 10.12 The Cutting Scene, Mandan O-kee-pa Ceremony, an 1832 painting by
George Catlin, depicts a rite-of-
passage ceremony that Catlin said he witnessed. It featured wooden splints inserted
into the chest and back muscles
of young men. Such paintings increased Indians’ reputation as savages.
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AMERICANA
The Paintings of George Catlin
George Catlin seized upon the public fascination with the supposedly
exotic and savage Indian, seeing
an opportunity to make money by painting them in a way that conformed to
popular white stereotypes
(Figure 10.13). In the late 1830s, he toured major cities with his
Indian Gallery, a collection of paintings of
native peoples. Though he hoped his exhibition would be profitable, it
did not bring him financial security.
Figure 10.13 In Attacking the Grizzly Bear (a), painted in 1844, Catlin
focused on the Indians’ own
vanishing culture, while in Wi-jún-jon, Pigeon’s Egg Head (The Light)
Going To and Returning From
Washington (b), painted in 1837–1839, he contrasted their ways with
those of whites by showing an
Assiniboine chief transformed by a visit to Washington, DC.
Catlin routinely painted Indians in a supposedly aboriginal state. In
Attacking the Grizzly Bear, the hunters
do not have rifles and instead rely on spears. Such a portrayal
stretches credibility as native peoples had
long been exposed to and adopted European weapons. Indeed, the
painting’s depiction of Indians riding
horses, which were introduced by the Spanish, makes clear that, as much
as Catlin and white viewers
wanted to believe in the primitive and savage native, the reality was
otherwise.
In Wi-jún-jon, Pigeon's Egg Head (The Light) Going To and Returning From
Washington, the viewer is
shown a before and after portrait of Wi-jún-jon, who tried to emulate
white dress and manners after going
to Washington, DC. What differences do you see between these two
representations of Wi-jún-jon? Do
you think his attempt to imitate whites was successful? Why or why not?
What do you think Catlin was
trying to convey with this depiction of Wi-jún-jon’s assimilation?
THE INDIAN REMOVAL ACT
In his first message to Congress, Jackson had proclaimed that Indian groups living
independently within
states, as sovereign entities, presented a major problem for state sovereignty.
This message referred
directly to the situation in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, where the Creek,
Choctaw, Chickasaw,
Seminole, and Cherokee peoples stood as obstacles to white settlement. These groups
were known as the
Five Civilized Tribes, because they had largely adopted Anglo-American culture,
speaking English and
practicing Christianity. Some held slaves like their white counterparts.
Whites especially resented the Cherokee in Georgia, coveting the tribe’s rich
agricultural lands in the
northern part of the state. The impulse to remove the Cherokee only increased when
gold was discovered
on their lands. Ironically, while whites insisted the Cherokee and other native
peoples could never be good
citizens because of their savage ways, the Cherokee had arguably gone farther than
any other indigenous
group in adopting white culture. The Cherokee Phoenix, the newspaper of the
Cherokee, began publication
in 1828 (Figure 10.14) in English and the Cherokee language. Although the Cherokee
followed the lead
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of their white neighbors by farming and owning property, as well as embracing
Christianity and owning
their own slaves, this proved of little consequence in an era when whites perceived
all Indians as incapable
of becoming full citizens of the republic.
Figure 10.14 This image depicts the front page of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper
from May 21, 1828. The paper
was published in both English and the Cherokee language.
Jackson’s anti-Indian stance struck a chord with a majority of white citizens, many
of whom shared a
hatred of nonwhites that spurred Congress to pass the 1830 Indian Removal Act. The
act called for the
removal of the Five Civilized Tribes from their home in the southeastern United
States to land in the
West, in present-day Oklahoma. Jackson declared in December 1830, “It gives me
pleasure to announce to
Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly
thirty years, in relation
to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a
happy consummation. Two
important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last
session of Congress, and it
is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the
same obvious advantages.”
The Cherokee decided to fight the federal law, however, and took their case to the
Supreme Court.
Their legal fight had the support of anti-Jackson members of Congress, including
Henry Clay and Daniel
Webster, and they retained the legal services of former attorney general William
Wirt. In Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia, Wirt argued that the Cherokee constituted an independent foreign nation,
and that an injunction
(a stop) should be placed on Georgia laws aimed at eradicating them. In 1831, the
Supreme Court found
the Cherokee did not meet the criteria for being a foreign nation.
Another case involving the Cherokee also found its way to the highest court in the
land. This legal
struggle—Worcester v. Georgia—asserted the rights of non-natives to live on Indian
lands. Samuel
Worcester was a Christian missionary and federal postmaster of New Echota, the
capital of the Cherokee
nation. A Congregationalist, he had gone to live among the Cherokee in Georgia to
further the spread of
Christianity, and he strongly opposed Indian removal.
By living among the Cherokee, Worcester had violated a Georgia law forbidding
whites, unless they
were agents of the federal government, to live in Indian territory. Worcester was
arrested, but because
his federal job as postmaster gave him the right to live there, he was released.
Jackson supporters then
succeeded in taking away Worcester’s job, and he was re-arrested. This time, a
court sentenced him and
nine others for violating the Georgia state law banning whites from living on
Indian land. Worcester was
sentenced to four years of hard labor. When the case of Worcester v. Georgia came
before the Supreme Court
in 1832, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled in favor of Worcester, finding that the
Cherokee constituted
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“distinct political communities” with sovereign rights to their own territory.
DEFINING "AMERICAN"
Chief Justice John Marshall’s Ruling in Worcester v. Georgia
In 1832, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall ruled in favor
of Samuel Worcester in
Worcester v. Georgia. In doing so, he established the principle of
tribal sovereignty. Although this
judgment contradicted Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, it failed to halt the
Indian Removal Act. In his opinion,
Marshall wrote the following:
From the commencement of our government Congress has passed acts
to regulate trade and
intercourse with the Indians; which treat them as nations, respect
their rights, and manifest
a firm purpose to afford that protection which treaties stipulate.
All these acts, and especially
that of 1802, which is still in force, manifestly consider the
several Indian nations as distinct
political communities, having territorial boundaries, within which
their authority is exclusive,
and having a right to all the lands within those boundaries, which
is not only acknowledged,
but guaranteed by the United States. . . .
The Cherokee Nation, then, is a distinct community, occupying its
own territory, with
boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can
have no force, and which
the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the assent
of the Cherokees themselves
or in conformity with treaties and with the acts of Congress. The
whole intercourse between
the United States and this nation is, by our Constitution and
laws, vested in the government
of the United States.
The act of the State of Georgia under which the plaintiff in error
was prosecuted is
consequently void, and the judgment a nullity. . . . The Acts of
Georgia are repugnant to the
Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States.
How does this opinion differ from the outcome of Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia just one year earlier? Why
do you think the two outcomes were different?
The Supreme Court did not have the power to enforce its ruling in Worcester v.
Georgia, however, and
it became clear that the Cherokee would be compelled to move. Those who understood
that the only
option was removal traveled west, but the majority stayed on their land. In order
to remove them, the
president relied on the U.S. military. In a series of forced marches, some fifteen
thousand Cherokee were
finally relocated to Oklahoma. This forced migration, known as the Trail of Tears,
caused the deaths of as
many as four thousand Cherokee (Figure 10.15). The Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and
Seminole peoples
were also compelled to go. The removal of the Five Civilized Tribes provides an
example of the power of
majority opinion in a democracy.
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Figure 10.15 After the passage of the Indian Removal Act, the U.S. military forced
the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw,
Chickasaw, and Seminole to relocate from the Southeast to an area in the western
territory (now Oklahoma),
marching them along the routes shown here.
Click and Explore
Explore the interactive Trail of Tears map
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/
15NativeAm) at PBS.org to see the routes the Five
Civilized Tribes traveled when they
were expelled from their lands. Then listen to a
collection of Cherokee oral histories
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15NativeAm2) including
verses of a Cherokee-
language song about the Trail of Tears. What do you
think is the importance of oral
history in documenting the Cherokee experience?
BLACK HAWK’S WAR
The policy of removal led some Indians to actively resist. In 1832, the Fox and the
Sauk, led by Sauk chief
Black Hawk (Makataimeshekiakiah), moved back across the Mississippi River to
reclaim their ancestral
home in northern Illinois. A brief war in 1832, Black Hawk’s War, ensued. White
settlers panicked at the
return of the native peoples, and militias and federal troops quickly mobilized. At
the Battle of Bad Axe
(also known as the Bad Axe Massacre), they killed over two hundred men, women, and
children. Some
seventy white settlers and soldiers also lost their lives in the conflict (Figure
10.16). The war, which lasted
only a matter of weeks, illustrates how much whites on the frontier hated and
feared Indians during the
Age of Jackson.
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Figure 10.16 Charles Bird King’s 1837 portrait Sauk Chief Makataimeshekiakiah, or
Black Hawk (a), depicts the
Sauk chief who led the Fox and Sauk peoples in an ill-fated effort to return to
their native lands in northern Illinois.
This engraving depicting the Battle of Bad Axe (b) shows U.S. soldiers on a steamer
firing on Indians aboard a raft.
(credit b: modification of work by Library of Congress)
10.5 The Tyranny and Triumph of the Majority
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Explain Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of American democracy
• Describe the election of 1840 and its outcome
To some observers, the rise of democracy in the United States raised troubling
questions about the
new power of the majority to silence minority opinion. As the will of the majority
became the rule of
the day, everyone outside of mainstream, white American opinion, especially Indians
and blacks, were
vulnerable to the wrath of the majority. Some worried that the rights of those who
opposed the will of
the majority would never be safe. Mass democracy also shaped political campaigns as
never before. The
1840 presidential election marked a significant turning point in the evolving style
of American democratic
politics.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Perhaps the most insightful commentator on American democracy was the young French
aristocrat Alexis
de Tocqueville, whom the French government sent to the United States to report on
American prison
reforms (Figure 10.17). Tocqueville marveled at the spirit of democracy that
pervaded American life.
Given his place in French society, however, much of what he saw of American
democracy caused him
concern.
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Figure 10.17 Alexis de Tocqueville is best known for his insightful commentary on
American democracy found in De
la démocratie en Amérique. The first volume of Tocqueville’s two-volume work was
immediately popular throughout
Europe. The first English translation, by Henry Reeve and titled Democracy in
America (a), was published in New
York in 1838. Théodore Chassériau painted this portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville in
1850 (b).
Tocqueville’s experience led him to believe that democracy was an unstoppable force
that would one day
overthrow monarchy around the world. He wrote and published his findings in 1835
and 1840 in a two-
part work entitled Democracy in America. In analyzing the democratic revolution in
the United States, he
wrote that the major benefit of democracy came in the form of equality before the
law. A great deal of the
social revolution of democracy, however, carried negative consequences. Indeed,
Tocqueville described a
new type of tyranny, the tyranny of the majority, which overpowers the will of
minorities and individuals
and was, in his view, unleashed by democracy in the United States.
In this excerpt from Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville warns of the
dangers of democracy when
the majority will can turn to tyranny:
When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can
he apply for
redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if
to the legislature, it
represents the majority, and implicitly obeys its injunctions; if to the
executive power, it is
appointed by the majority, and remains a passive tool in its hands; the
public troops consist of
the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of
hearing judicial cases;
and in certain States even the judges are elected by the majority. However
iniquitous or absurd
the evil of which you complain may be, you must submit to it as well as you
can.
The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the actions of
the subject without
subduing his private will; but the majority possesses a power which is
physical and moral at the
same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men, and it
represses not only all
contest, but all controversy. I know no country in which there is so little
true independence of
mind and freedom of discussion as in America.
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Click and Explore
Take the Alexis de Tocqueville Tour
(http://openstaxcollege.org/l/15Tocqueville)
to experience nineteenth-century America as
Tocqueville did, by reading his journal
entries about the states and territories he visited
with fellow countryman Gustave de
Beaumont. What regional differences can you draw
from his descriptions?
THE 1840 ELECTION
The presidential election contest of 1840 marked the culmination of the democratic
revolution that swept
the United States. By this time, the second party system had taken hold, a system
whereby the older
Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties had been replaced by the new
Democratic and Whig Parties.
Both Whigs and Democrats jockeyed for election victories and commanded the steady
loyalty of political
partisans. Large-scale presidential campaign rallies and emotional propaganda
became the order of the
day. Voter turnout increased dramatically under the second party system. Roughly 25
percent of eligible
voters had cast ballots in 1828. In 1840, voter participation surged to nearly 80
percent.
The differences between the parties were largely about economic policies. Whigs
advocated accelerated
economic growth, often endorsing federal government projects to achieve that goal.
Democrats did not
view the federal government as an engine promoting economic growth and advocated a
smaller role for
the national government. The membership of the parties also differed: Whigs tended
to be wealthier; they
were prominent planters in the South and wealthy urban northerners—in other words,
the beneficiaries
of the market revolution. Democrats presented themselves as defenders of the common
people against the
elite.
In the 1840 presidential campaign, taking their cue from the Democrats who had
lionized Jackson’s
military accomplishments, the Whigs promoted William Henry Harrison as a war hero
based on his 1811
military service against the Shawnee chief Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe.
John Tyler of Virginia
ran as the vice presidential candidate, leading the Whigs to trumpet, “Tippecanoe
and Tyler too!” as a
campaign slogan.
The campaign thrust Harrison into the national spotlight. Democrats tried to
discredit him by declaring,
“Give him a barrel of hard [alcoholic] cider and settle a pension of two thousand a
year on him, and take
my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.” The Whigs
turned the slur to their
advantage by presenting Harrison as a man of the people who had been born in a log
cabin (in fact, he
came from a privileged background in Virginia), and the contest became known as the
log cabin campaign
(Figure 10.18). At Whig political rallies, the faithful were treated to whiskey
made by the E. C. Booz
Company, leading to the introduction of the word “booze” into the American lexicon.
Tippecanoe Clubs,
where booze flowed freely, helped in the marketing of the Whig candidate.
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Figure 10.18 The Whig campaign song “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” (a) and the anti-
Whig flyers (b) that were
circulated in response to the “log cabin campaign” illustrate the partisan fervor
of the 1840 election.
The Whigs’ efforts, combined with their strategy of blaming Democrats for the
lingering economic collapse
that began with the hard-currency Panic of 1837, succeeded in carrying the day. A
mass campaign with
political rallies and party mobilization had molded a candidate to fit an ideal
palatable to a majority of
American voters, and in 1840 Harrison won what many consider the first modern
election.
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Key Terms
American System the program of federally sponsored roads and canals, protective
tariffs, and a national
bank advocated by Henry Clay and enacted by President Adams
code of deference the practice of showing respect for individuals who had
distinguished themselves
through accomplishments or birth
corrupt bargain the term that Andrew Jackson’s supporters applied to John Quincy
Adams’s 1824
election, which had occurred through the machinations of Henry
Clay in the U.S. House
of Representatives
Five Civilized Tribes the five tribes—Cherokee, Seminole, Creek, Choctaw, and
Chickasaw—who had
most thoroughly adopted Anglo-American culture; they also
happened to be the
tribes that were believed to stand in the way of western settlement in the South
Kitchen Cabinet a nickname for Andrew Jackson’s informal group of loyal advisers
log cabin campaign the 1840 election, in which the Whigs painted William Henry
Harrison as a man of
the people
monster bank the term Democratic opponents used to denounce the Second Bank of the
United States as
an emblem of special privilege and big government
nullification the theory, advocated in response to the Tariff of 1828, that states
could void federal law at
their discretion
rotation in office originally, simply the system of having term limits on political
appointments; in the
Jackson era, this came to mean the replacement of officials with
party loyalists
second party system the system in which the Democratic and Whig Parties were the
two main political
parties after the decline of the Federalist and Democratic-
Republican Parties
spoils system the political system of rewarding friends and supporters with
political appointments
Tariff of Abominations a federal tariff introduced in 1828 that placed a high duty
on imported goods in
order to help American manufacturers, which southerners
viewed as unfair and
harmful to their region
Trail of Tears the route of the forced removal of the Cherokee and other tribes
from the southeastern
United States to the territory that is now Oklahoma
tyranny of the majority Alexis de Tocqueville’s phrase warning of the dangers of
American democracy
universal manhood suffrage voting rights for all male adults
Whigs a political party that emerged in the early 1830s to oppose what members saw
as President
Andrew Jackson’s abuses of power
Summary
10.1 A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson
The early 1800s saw an age of deference give way to universal manhood suffrage and
a new type of
political organization based on loyalty to the party. The election of 1824 was a
fight among Democratic-
Republicans that ended up pitting southerner Andrew Jackson against northerner John
Quincy Adams.
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
When Adams won through political negotiations in the House of Representatives,
Jackson’s supporters
derided the election as a “corrupt bargain.” The Tariff of 1828 further stirred
southern sentiment, this
time against a perceived bias in the federal government toward northeastern
manufacturers. At the same
time, the tariff stirred deeper fears that the federal government might take steps
that could undermine the
system of slavery.
10.2 The Rise of American Democracy
The Democratic-Republicans’ “corrupt bargain” that brought John Quincy Adams and
Henry Clay to
office in 1824 also helped to push them out of office in 1828. Jackson used it to
highlight the cronyism of
Washington politics. Supporters presented him as a true man of the people fighting
against the elitism
of Clay and Adams. Jackson rode a wave of populist fervor all the way to the White
House, ushering in
the ascendency of a new political party: the Democrats. Although Jackson ran on a
platform of clearing
the corruption out of Washington, he rewarded his own loyal followers with plum
government jobs, thus
continuing and intensifying the cycle of favoritism and corruption.
10.3 The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War
Andrew Jackson’s election in 1832 signaled the rise of the Democratic Party and a
new style of American
politics. Jackson understood the views of the majority, and he skillfully used the
popular will to his
advantage. He adroitly navigated through the Nullification Crisis and made
headlines with what his
supporters viewed as his righteous war against the bastion of money, power, and
entrenched insider
interests, the Second Bank of the United States. His actions, however, stimulated
opponents to fashion an
opposition party, the Whigs.
10.4 Indian Removal
Popular culture in the Age of Jackson emphasized the savagery of the native peoples
and shaped domestic
policy. Popular animosity found expression in the Indian Removal Act. Even the U.S.
Supreme Court’s
ruling in favor of the Cherokee in Georgia offered no protection against the forced
removal of the Five
Civilized Tribes from the Southeast, mandated by the 1830 Indian Removal Act and
carried out by the U.S.
military.
10.5 The Tyranny and Triumph of the Majority
American culture of the 1830s reflected the rise of democracy. The majority
exercised a new type of
power that went well beyond politics, leading Alexis de Tocqueville to write about
the “tyranny of the
majority.” Very quickly, politicians among the Whigs and Democrats learned to
master the magic of the
many by presenting candidates and policies that catered to the will of the
majority. In the 1840 “log cabin
campaign,” both sides engaged in the new democratic electioneering. The uninhibited
expression during
the campaign inaugurated a new political style.
Review Questions
1. Which group saw an expansion of their voting
rights in the early nineteenth century?
A. free blacks
B. non-property-owning men
C. women
D. Indians
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
299
2. What was the lasting impact of the Bucktail 10. South Carolina threatened
to nullify which
Republican Party in New York? federal act?
A. They implemented universal suffrage. A. the abolition of slavery
B. They pushed for the expansion of the canal B. the expansion of the
transportation
system. infrastructure
C. They elevated Martin Van Buren to the C. the protective tariff on
imported goods
national political stage. D. the rotation in office
that expelled several
D. They changed state election laws from an federal officers
appointee system to a system of open
elections. 11. How did President Jackson
respond to
Congress’s re-chartering of
the Second Bank of the
3. Who won the popular vote in the election of United States?
1824? A. He vetoed it.
A. Andrew Jackson B. He gave states the right
to implement it or
B. Martin Van Buren not.
C. Henry Clay C. He signed it into law.
D. John Quincy Adams D. He wrote a
counterproposal.
4. Why did Andrew Jackson and his supporters 12. Why did the Second Bank of
the United States
consider the election of John Quincy Adams to be make such an inviting target
for President
a “corrupt bargain”? Jackson?
5. Who stood to gain from the Tariff of 13. What were the philosophies
and policies of
Abominations, and who expected to lose by it? the new Whig Party?
6. What was the actual result of Jackson’s policy 14. How did most whites in the
United States
of “rotation in office”? view Indians in the 1820s?
A. an end to corruption in Washington A. as savages
B. a replacement of Adams’s political loyalists B. as being in touch with
nature
with Jackson’s political loyalists C. as slaves
C. the filling of government posts with D. as shamans
officials the people chose themselves
D. the creation of the Kitchen Cabinet 15. The 1830 Indian Removal
Act is best
understood as ________.
7. The election of 1828 brought in the first A. an example of President
Jackson forcing
presidency of which political party? Congress to pursue an
unpopular policy
A. the Democrats B. an illustration of the
widespread hatred of
B. the Democratic-Republicans Indians during the Age
of Jackson
C. the Republicans C. an example of laws
designed to integrate
D. the Bucktails Indians into American
life
D. an effort to deprive the
Cherokee of their
8. What were the planks of Andrew Jackson’s slave property
campaign platform in 1828?
16. What was the Trail of
Tears?
9. What was the significance of the Petticoat
affair?
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Chapter 10 | Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840
17. The winner of the 1840 election was ________. 18.
Which of the following did not characterize
political changes in the 1830s?
A. a Democrat
A. higher voter participation
B. a Democratic-Republican
B. increasing political power of free black
C. an Anti-Federalist
voters
D. a Whig
C. stronger partisan ties
D. political battles between Whigs and
Democrats
19.
How did Alexis de Tocqueville react to his
visit to the United States? What impressed and
what
worried him?
Critical Thinking Questions
20. What were some of the social and cultural beliefs that became widespread during
the Age of Jackson?
What lay behind these beliefs, and do you observe any of them in American culture
today?
21. Were the political changes of the early nineteenth century positive or
negative? Explain your opinion.
22. If you were defending the Cherokee and other native nations before the U.S.
Supreme Court in the
1830s, what arguments would you make? If you were supporting Indian removal, what
arguments would
you make?
23. How did depictions of Indians in popular culture help to sway popular opinion?
Does modern
popular culture continue to wield this kind of power over us? Why or why not?
24. Does Alexis de Tocqueville’s argument about the tyranny of the majority reflect
American democracy
today? Provide examples to support your answer.
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