Transcript JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY - Phoenixville Area School District

CHAPTER 10
• THE TRIUMPH OF WHITE MAN’S
DEMOCRACY
JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY
• “Democratizing” Politics
– Jefferson believed ordinary citizens could
be educated to determine what was right
– Jackson believed they knew what was right
by instinct
– new western states drew up constitutions
that eliminated property qualifications for
voting and holding office-universal white
male suffrage.
– More elected offices-sheriff, judge, etc.
– only in DE and SC did legislatures continue
to choose presidential electors
– disestablishment of churches and
beginning of free-school movement
– officeholders came to regard themselves
as representatives and leaders, and
appealed more openly and intensely for
votes; this influenced the party system that
exists today
The Corrupt Bargain
• 1828: The New Party System in
Embryo
– he began campaigning for 1828 almost
immediately after Adams’s selection by the
House of Representatives
– in campaign of 1828, Jackson avoided
taking a stand on issues
– Character assassination-mud slinging
– Huge voter turnout-Jackson wins.
• The Jacksonian Appeal
– Jackson was neither a democrat nor a friend of the
underprivileged-esp. slaves and natives
– he owned a large plantation and many slaves
– his manners and life-style were those of a
southern planter-Like Jefferson, but tough
– his supporters likened him to Jefferson, in many
ways Jackson more closely resembled the more
conservative Washington
• The Spoils System
– Appoint people for their loyalty.
– Rotation in office.
– he believed the duties of public officials
were so simple that anyone could perform
them
– rotating offices would permit more citizens
to participate in tasks of government and
prevent corrupt career politicians
• President of All the People
– Jackson conceived of himself as direct
representative of people and embodiment of
national power
– he vetoed more bills than all of his predecessors
combined, yet he had no desire to expand federal
authority at the expense of the states-separation
of powers?
• Sectional Tensions Revived
– Jackson steered a moderate course on
issues dividing the sections, urging a slight
reduction of the tariff and “constitutional”
internal improvements
– he proposed that surplus federal revenues
be “distributed” to the states
• Jackson: “The Bank . . . I Will Kill It!”
– Jackson won reelection in 1832, partly based on his
promise to destroy second Bank of the U.S.-which the
Reps chartered
– Marshall declared its constitutionality and the Bank of
the U.S. flourished
– Jackson also detested the influence of Nicholas
Biddle who ran the bank.
article
– Biddle wanted to control credit and compel
local banks to maintain adequate reserves
of specie
– at the same time the nation had an
insatiable need for capital and credit
– regional jealousies also came into play, as
did distrust of chartered corporations as
agents of special privilege
• Jackson’s Bank Veto
– opposition to the Bank remained unfocused until
Jackson brought it together
– Biddle drew closer to Clay and Webster, who
hoped to use the bank issue against Jackson
– Clay and Webster urged Biddle to ask Congress
to renew Bank’s charter early
– the bill passed Congress, and Jackson vetoed it
– after his reelection, Jackson withdrew government
funds from Bank-and put them in state “pet banks”
– faced with withdrawal of so much cash, Biddle
contracted his operations
– he further contracted credit by presenting all state
bank notes for conversion into specie and limiting
his own bank’s loans
– money became scarce, and a serious panic
threatened
– Pressure mounted on Jackson, who refused to
budge
– eventually, pressure shifted to Biddle, who began
to lend freely; the crisis ended
One week until New Kid Jimmy
• Jackson Versus Calhoun
– Calhoun coveted the presidency, moreover,
personal animosities separated him from
Jackson-Seminole War
– the two men were not far apart ideologically
except on the issue of the right of a state to
overrule federal authority
– like most westerners, Jackson favored internal
improvements, but he preferred that local
projects be left to the states
– he vetoed the Maysville Road Bill because the
route was wholly within Kentucky
• Indian Removal
– Jackson also took a states’ rights position in the
controversy between the Cherokee Indians and
Georgia
– he pursued a policy of removing Indians from the
path of white settlement
– Some tribes resisted and were subdued by troops
– the Cherokee attempted to hold their lands by
adjusting to white ways-as promised by Jefferson
– in spite of several treaties that seemed to establish
the legitimacy of their government, Georgia
refused to recognize it
– Georgia passed a law declaring all Cherokee laws
void and the Cherokee lands part of Georgia
– in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Marshall ruled that
the Cherokee were “not a foreign state” and
therefore could not sue in a federal court, but in
Worcester v. Georgia, he ruled that the state could
not control the Cherokee or their territory
– Jackson backed Georgia and insisted that
no independent nation could exist within
U.S.
– eventually, the U.S. forced about 15,000
Cherokee to leave Georgia for lands in
Oklahoma; about 4,000 died on the way,
hence the name “Trail of Tears”
• The Nullification Crisis
– SC planters objected to a new tariff law passed in
1832 that lowered duties less than they had
hoped-why?
– they also resented northern agitation against
slavery
– radicals in the state saw the two issues as related
(both represented the tyranny of the majority), and
they turned to Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification as
a logical defense-called it “tariff of abominations”
– Jackson believed that if a state could nullify
federal law the Union could not exist
– South Carolina passed an ordinance of
nullification prohibiting collection of tariff duties in
state and voted to authorize the raising of an army
– Jackson began military preparations of his own-
– in a presidential proclamation, he warned that
“disunion by armed force is treason”
– Congress compromised by reducing the
tariff and by passing a Force Bill granting
the president additional authority to enforce
the revenue laws
– Sobered by Jackson’s response and
professing to be satisfied with the token
reductions of the new tariff, South Carolina
repealed the Nullification Ordinance
– South Carolina attempted to save face by
nullifying the Force Act-similar to
Declaratory Act?
• Boom and Bust
– an increased volume of currency caused
land prices to soar
– proceeds from land sales wiped out the
government’s debt and produced a surplus
– alarmed by the speculative mania, Jackson
issued a Specie Circular, which required
purchasers of government land to pay in
gold or silver
– demand immediately slackened, and prices
sagged
– speculators defaulted on mortgages, and banks
could not recover enough on foreclosed property
to recover their loans
– people rushed to withdraw their money in the form
of specie, and banks exhausted their supplies
– panic swept the country
– numerous factors caused such swings in the
economic cycle, but Jackson’s policies
exaggerated them
• Jacksonian Foreign Policy
– Jackson’s exaggerated patriotism led him to push
relentlessly for the solution of minor problems, and
he did achieve some diplomatic successes
– Great Britain agreed to several reciprocal trade
agreements, including one that finally opened
British West Indian ports to American ships
– France agreed to pay compensation for damages
to American property during the Napoleonic wars
– when the French Chamber of Deputies refused to
appropriate the necessary funds, Jackson sent a
blistering message to Congress asking for
reprisals against French property
– Congress wisely took no action, which led
Jackson to suspend diplomatic relations with
France and order the navy readied
– the French government finally appropriated the
money
• The Jacksonian Coalition
– Jacksonian Democrats included rich and
poor, easterners and westerners,
abolitionists and slaveholders
– if it was not yet a close-knit national
organization, the party agreed on certain
basic principles: suspicion of special
privilege and large business corporations,
freedom of economic opportunity, political
freedom (at least for white males), and
conviction that ordinary citizens could
perform tasks of government
– Democrats also tended to favor states’
rights
– Jacksonians supported opportunities for
the less affluent (such as public education)
but showed no desire to penalize the
wealthy or to intervene in economic affairs
to aid the underprivileged
• Rise of the Whigs
– Jackson’s opposition remained less
cohesive and dissident groups began to
call themselves Whigs
– those who could not accept the
peculiarities of Jacksonian finance or had
no taste for the anti-intellectual bent of the
administration were drawn to the Whigs
Not this kind of
wig!
– the Whigs were slow to develop an
effective party organization
– in 1836, they relied on a series of favorite
son candidates in an effort to throw the
election into the House of Representatives
– the strategy failed to defeat Jackson’s
handpicked successor, Martin Van Buren
• Martin Van Buren:
Without Jackson
Jacksonianism
– Van Buren approached most problems
pragmatically
– he fought the Bank of the U.S. but opposed
irresponsible state banks as well
– while favoring public construction of internal
improvements, he preferred state rather than
national programs
– Van Buren had the misfortune to take office just as
the Panic of 1837 hit
– just as the country recovered from the Panic of
1837, cotton prices declined sharply in 1839
– state governments defaulted on their debts, which
discouraged investors
– a general economic depression lasted until 1843
– Van Buren did not cause the depression, but his
policies did nothing to help
– his refusal to assume any responsibility for the
general welfare has led some historians to argue
that the Whigs, not the Democrats, were the
“positive liberals” of the era
– the depression convinced Van Buren that
he needed to find some place other than
the state banks to keep federal funds
– he settled on the idea of removing the
government from all banking activities
– the Independent Treasury Act called for the
construction of government-owned vaults
to store federal revenues; all payments to
government were to be made in hard cash
• The Log Cabin Campaign
– the depression hurt the Democrats, but it did not
cause Van Buren’s defeat in 1840
– Whigs were better organized than four years
earlier, and they stole the Democrats’ tactics by
nominating a popular general and shouting
praises of the common man
– they contrasted simplicity of William Henry
Harrison with the suave Van Buren
– huge turnout elected Harrison by large
margin; less than a month after his
inauguration, Harrison fell ill and died
– with the succession of John Tyler, events
took a new turn, one that would lead to civil
war
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