The era of Andrew Jackson examined in light of accomplishments and failures. Complexities of Jacksonian democracy.

1. C H A P T E R 1 0
THE JACKSONIAN ERA

2. JACKSON BIO & POLITICAL PRINCIPLES
• DOB: 1767
• Father died 3 weeks before his birth
• Raised by single mother who worked as a housekeeper
• Fought in American Revolutionary War at 14
• Brother killed
• Jackson captured and slashed about the head by a British
officer’s sword when Jackson refused to shine the officer’s
boots
• Jackson hated the British
• Dueling incident in 1806 over insult to his wife, “I should have hit
him if he shot me in the brain!”
• Battle of New Orleans

3. JACKSON BIO AND POLITICAL
PRINCIPLES
• Self-taught lawyer
• Moved to Nashville, TN in 1788
• Questions about the status of his marriage to his
wife
• Thomas Jefferson on Andrew Jackson: “His passions
are terrible!”
• John Adams on Andrew Jackson: “a barbarian and
savage who can scarcely spell his name.”
• Jackson dismissed comments as examples of
“Eastern Elite” who tried to control American
politics.

4. JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY
• As new states added the restrictions on voting were
relaxed to encourage more participation in the
new western states
• Elites worried about expansion of the franchise
• Jackson embraced expansion of the franchise
• “White males of age constitute the political nation,”
• Jackson promise: “protect the poor and humble
from the tyranny of wealth and power”
• Jackson goal: elevate the laboring classes who
“love liberty and desire noting but equal rights and
equal laws.”

5. JACKSON AND EXECUTIVE POWER
• Expand power of president
• Remove power of political elite
• Jackson was representative of the people and the people
are the sovereign
• “World is governed too much!”
• Reduce federal spending
• Pay off federal debt
• Destroy the Second Bank of the U.S.
• Remove the “ill-fated race” of Native Americans from the
East
• Spoils System

6. EARLY YEARS OF JACKSON’S
PRESIDENCY
• Appointments and rivalries
• V.P. John C. Calhoun vs. Secretary of State, Martin van
Buren
• Scandal: Eaton Affair
• Calhoun’s wife vs. Peggy Eaton (wife of John Eaton—Secretary
of War)
• Martin Van Buren and John Eaton resigned from cabinet; others
follow
• Kitchen-Cabinet
• Internal Improvements (Pork Barrel Projects)
• Maysville Road Bill (Maysville Kentucky to Louisville Kentucky
(home of Henry Clay)
• Jackson vetoed the bill to popular support

7. Martin Van Buren John C. Calhoun President Andrew Jackson

8. THE EATON (PETTICOAT) AFFAIR
Images of Peggy Eaton

9. THE EATON (PETTICOAT) AFFAIR
John Henry Eaton President Andrew Jackson John C. Calhoun
John B. Timberlake

10. THE EATON (PETTICOAT) AFFAIR
Images of Floride Calhoun

11. THE EATON (PETTICOAT) AFFAIR
Rachael Jackson
I [would] rather have live vermin on my back than the tongue of one of these
Washington women on my reputation. –Andrew Jackson

12. TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS &
NULLIFICATION

13. TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS
• The Tariff of 1828 was the highest tariff ever enacted in
US history.
• Protect American industry from British competition
• Northern manufacturers were in support of the tariff
• South felt the tariff would cripple their economy and was
unfairly passed to benefit only a specific region of the
US.
• Jackson & Democrats supported the tariff because it
was so high that it would cause everybody some pain.
They believed Republicans in the North would not
support the tariff.
• The tariff passed with a vote of 105 to 94

14. NULLIFICATION
• Calhoun’s theory: a state could nullify a federal law
as unconstitutional
• Only if the state held a state convention like the one the
state’s used to ratify the Constitution
• Law would be null only within the state’s own borders
• Federal Government would then have to propose a
Constitutional Amendment embodying the Federal law or
Federal government had to abandon the state law.

15. WEBSTER-HAYNE DEBATE

16. WEBSTER-HAYNE DEBATE
• Jackson ran against the “tariff of Abominations”
• 1829 neither Jackson nor Congress reduced the tariff
• 1829: Senator Samuel J. Foot (Connecticut) proposed
that Federal government restrict land sales in the West.
• Senator Thomas Hart Benton (Missouri) denounced the
law as a northern effort to slow the settlement of land in
the West so that the East might maintain its supply of
cheap factory labor.
• Senator Robert Hayne (S.C.) took Benton’s side
• Promote an alliance between South and West to oppose the
tariff
• Senator Daniel Webster (Mass) took Foot’s side

17. WEBSTER-HAYNE DEBATE
• Webster (regarded as nation’s best orator)
• Denied that the East had shown a restrictive policy toward the West
• Lured Hayne into defending “state’s rights” and “nullification”
• Hayne
• Defended Calhoun’s doctrine of nullification
• Called attention to the Hartford Convention of 1814 in which the New
England States threatened to secede .
• Federal government could not be the judge of its own powers.
• Webster
• American Revolution fought by a united nation not 13 separate
colonies
• True sovereignty resided in the people as a whole for whom the state
and federal government acted as agents in their respective spheres
• Union would be a “rope of sand”
• Practical outcome of nullification would be a civil war

18. JACKSON-CALHOUN RIFT
• Jefferson Day Dinner: April 13, 1830
• Jackson rejects nullification with toast
• “Our Union it must be preserved!”
• Calhoun responds
• “Our Union, next to our liberty most dear”
• Calhoun Letter: May 30, 1830
• Jackson sees Calhoun’s letter of 1818 when Calhoun
recommended disciplining Jackson for the unauthorized
invasion of Spanish Florida
• Cleansing the Cabinet: Summer 1830
• Jackson removes all Calhoun supporters from his cabinet
and replaces them with Jackson loyalists

19. THE RATS LEAVING A FALLING HOUSE

20. JACKSON RUNS FOR RE-ELECTION
• Van Buren not yet electable
• New Yorker
• Intrigues against the still popular Calhoun
• Jackson supporters urge him to break his rule about one
term
• Jackson agrees
• Calhoun breaks tie in Senate which votes against
appointment of Van Buren as ambassador to England
• “You have broken a minister and elected a Vice
President” Benton to Calhoun.
• Van Buren nominated to be Vice President in 1831
election.
• Calhoun becomes leader of South Carolina
“Nullificationists”

21. REFORMING THE TARIFF
• Jackson realized that the tariff was bad for his
popularity in the South
• Argued for reform to lower the tariff on products
unrelated to protection of American manufacturing
• 1830 Congress lowered tariffs on coffee, tea, salt and
molasses
• “nothing but sugar plums to pacify the children”

24. THE SOUTH CAROLINA ORDINANCE
• White South Carolinians lived in the only state where slaves
were a majority of the population
• Fear that the federal authority to impose tariffs might be used to
abolish slavery
• State elections of 1832, nullificationists took the initiative in
organization and agitation
• Unionist Party-little support but distinguished leaders
• State convention overwhelmingly adopted an ordinance of
nullification that repudiated the federal tariff acts of 1828 and
1832
• Forbade federal agents in Charleston to collect tariff duties after February 1,
1833
• Any citizen whose property was seized by federal authorities for failure to pay
tariff duties could get a state order to recover twice the value
• Robert Hayne elected governor and John C. Calhoun elected Senator (state
legislature in S.C.—not the population—elected U.S. Senators
• Calhoun resigned as Vice President to become a Senator from South
Carolina.

25. NULLIFICATION TICKET IN SOUTH
CAROLINA

26. NULLIFICATION: WHAT SIDE ARE YOU
ON?

27. JACKSON’S RESPONSE
• South Carolina stood alone
• Other southern states expressed sympathy but none
endorsed nullification
• Jackson: nullification is an act of treason
• December 10 proclamation: nullification is an “impractical
absurdity”
• “The laws of the United States must be executed”
• Nullification is disunion. “Disunion by armed force is treason”
• Sent federal soldiers to South Carolina
• Nullifiers mobilized South Carolina state militia
• 1833 Jackson requested a “force bill” authorizing him to
use the army to compel compliance with federal law
• Supported new tariff bill in Congress that would reduce
tariffs substantially within 2 years

28. CLAY’S COMPROMISE
• In anticipation of a compromise, nullifiers
postponed enforcement of the South Carolina
Ordinance
• February 13, 1833: Henry Clay of Kentucky urged his
supporters to support plan to reduce the tariff
gradually until 1843
• March 1, 1833: Congress passed the tariff
compromise and the Force Bill and Jackson signed
both bills on March 2
• Both sides were able to claim victory

29. JACKSON’S INDIAN POLICY
• Economic growth in the 1820’s, 30’s and 40’s
reinforced slavery and westward expansion
• Jackson’s view of Native Americans
• Barbarians who should be pushed out of the way
• “”a just, human, and liberal policy toward Indians” required
moving them to territory west of the Mississippi River, deserts
that whites would never covet.
• 1830 Indian Removal Act
• Authorized the President to give Native Americans land west of
the Mississippi River in exchange for the land they currently
occupied in the West and the South

30. BLACK HAWK WAR OF 1832
• Facing famine and hostile Sioux west of the
Mississippi River, Sauk and Fox peoples under
leadership of Chief Black Hawk sought to reoccupy
land in Illinois that they had abandoned the
previous year.
• They wanted to raise a crop of corn
• Illinois Militia chased the Fox and Sauk peoples into
Wisconsin Territory, massacred women and children
as they tried to escape across the Mississippi
• Two native Kentuckians participated in the war:
• Jefferson Davis
• Abraham Lincoln

31. SEMINOLE PEOPLES
• Seminole peoples fought protracted guerilla war in
Everglades from 1835 to 1842
• Resistance among Seminoles waned after Osceola
captured in 1842
• Never surrendered or signed a peace treaty

32. CHEROKEE PEOPLES
• Cherokee peoples
• Mostly located in the mountains of northern Georgia and
western North Carolina on land guaranteed to them by a 1791
treaty with the U.S. government.
• 1827 Cherokees adopted a constitution declaring that they
were not subject to the laws or control of any other state or
nation.
• 1828 Georgia declared that the authority of state law would
extend to Cherokees living within state boundaries after June
1, 1830
• 1829 discovery of gold in north Georgia
• Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)
• Supreme Court has no jurisdiction because Cherokees were a
domestic dependent nation not a foreign country
• Cherokees have “an unquestionable right” to their lands “until title
should be ceded to the United States”

33. CHEROKEE PEOPLES
• Georgia law 1830: White is Cherokee territory must
obtain licenses authorizing their residence there and
must swear allegiance to the state.
• Two New England missionaries refused.
• Georgia sentenced missionaries to 4 years at hard labor
• Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
• Cherokee Nation a distinct political community
• Georgia law had no force and is unconstitutional
• Jackson refused to enforce Supreme Court decision
• “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it! ...
Build a fire under them. When it gets hot enough, they'll go.”
• 1835 Cherokee Treaty: gave up about 100 million acres
of land in exchange for tracts in Indian Territory west of
Arkansas, 5 million dollars and expenses for
transportation

34. TRAIL OF TEARS
• 1838: Cherokees join other nations on an 800 mile
journey.
• Armed military from Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and
Alabama
• 7,000 men
• General Winfield Scott
• 13,000 Cherokees in concentration camps in Cleveland, Tennessee
• Disease, starvation and cold
• Winter 1838, Red Clay Tennessee, Cherokees began 1,000 mile
march without warm clothing and many without shoes
• Not allowed to buy food
• Charged a dollar a head to take a ferry across the Mississippi
• Berry’s ferry charged .12 cents to ferry whites across the river
• Cherokees had to wait until Berry had nothing better to do
• White settlers sued federal government for $35 per burial of a Native
American who died waiting to cross the river

35. TRAIL OF TEARS

36. THE BANK CONTROVERSY
• Most controversial issue in the election of 1832
• Re-chartering the National Bank
• Jackson: only hard currency (gold and silver) was only
legitimate medium of exchange
• National Bank
• Nicholas Biddle
• 29 branches
• 464 state banks required to keep a reserve of gold and silver (specie)
to back their paper currency
• National Bank was collecting and dispersing agent for federal
government
• 35 million in capital stock
• U.S. government owned 1/5th
• Revenues soared and National Bank became most powerful lending
institution because its huge size enabled the National Bank to set the amount
of credit available for the entire country

37. BANK OPPONENTS
• State and local banks that had been forced by the
specie policy to reduce their volume of paper
money
• Groups of debtors who suffered from the reduction
because they were unable to obtain loans
• Speculators (hedge fund investors we call them
today)
• States Rights groups
• Wall Street financiers (capital investors) who
resented power of the National Bank

38. ATTITUDES OF THE CITIZENS TOWARD
THE NATIONAL BANK
• Many Westerners and working men
• Bank as a “monster” with too much power in one group
• Controlled by a wealthy few

39. HOW WAS THE NATIONAL BANK A
STABILIZING ENTITY?
• By issuing paper money, the National Bank provided
a stable, uniform currency
• Provided a mechanism to control the rate of growth
by regulating the amount of money in circulation
• Enabled growth
• Moderated the “boom” and “bust” cycle

40. JACKSON’S VIEW
• Bankers are “vipers and thieves”
• To Biddle, “I do not dislike your bank anymore than I
dislike all banks”
• 1829 Jackson’s 1st annual message
• Questioned constitutionality of the bank
• Bank failed to maintain a sound, uniform currency (all
evidence to the contrary)
• Proposed compromise
• Bank owned by Federal government
• Confined to government deposits
• Profits payable to government
• Authority to set up branches in states dependent on state
wishes

41. FRIENDS OF THE NATIONAL BANK
• Included Henry Clay and Daniel Webster (Senator
and legal counsel to National Bank
• National Republicans (new name of Federalist
Party) with Clay as leader
• Re-charter of national bank should occur before
Presidential Election of 1832
• More supporters of National Bank in Congress than opponents
of National Bank
• If Jackson vetoed the bill, he would lose the election
• Clay and Webster and supporters of National Bank
underestimated both Jackson’s resolve and the suspicion
with which common man viewed the National Bank

42. JACKSON’S RESPONSE
• Congress passed the re-charter with majorities in
both houses but without 2/3 support necessary to
override a Presidential veto
• Jackson to Van Buren, “The Bank is trying to kill me
but I will kill it.”
• July 10, 1832: Jackson vetoed the re-charter bill
• “The opinion of the judges has no more authority
over Congress than the opinion of Congress had
over the judges and on that point the President is
independent of both.”

43. INNOVATIONS IN ELECTION OF 1832
• First 3rd Party: Anti-Masonic Party
• Popular hostility toward the Masons
• 1st party to hold a national convention and announce a party
platform
• William Wirt of Maryland for President
• Democratic Party
• Andrew Jackson for President
• Many members of the Democratic party were angry at
Jackson over nullification but supported him because of his
opposition to the National Bank
• National Republican Party (formerly the Federalist Party)
• Henry Clay for President
• Both the Democratic Party and the National Republican
Party held nominating conventions and formed a
platform following the lead of the Anti-Masonic Party

44. “OLD JACK, THE FAMOUS NEW ORLEANS MOUSER,
CLEARING UNCLE SAM'S BARN
OF BANK AND CLAY RATS”

45. RESULTS OF 1832 ELECTION

46. JACKSON’S WAR AGAINST THE BANK
• At Jackson’s request Congress investigated the safety of
government deposits in the National Bank and found
that they were safe
• Jackson ordered Secretary of the Treasury Louis McLane
to remove all government deposits from the National
Bank
• Jackson fired McLane when he refused and replaced
him with Attorney General Roger B. Taney (yes, Roger B.
Taney of Dred Scott fame)
• Taney deposited federal receipts in State Banks
• 1833: 23 state banks “pet banks” held federal deposits
• Senate voted to censure Jackson for transferring
government deposits

47. BIDDLE REFUSES TO SURRENDER
• “This worthy President thanks that because he has
scalped Indians and imprisoned Judges he is to
have his way with the Bank. He is mistaken!”
• Ordered the B.U.S. to curtail loans and demanded
redemption of state bank notes in gold and silver
immediately.
• Hoped to bring economy to a halt, create a sharp
depression and demonstrate the importance of the
National Bank.

48. UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
• Jackson’s Pet Banks no longer restrained by
monetary policy of the National Bank which
required specie to back up bank notes
• New banks printed bank notes without regard for
specie to lend money to land speculators in the
West
• Sale of public lands rose from 4 million acres in 1834
to 15 million acres in 1835 and 20 million acres in
1836.
• States plunged into debt to finance roads and
canals
• 1837: State indebtedness was $170 million

49. THE ECONOMY FALLS INTO THE DITCH
• 1836: Distribution Act
• By 1835 Government debt had been paid off
• Henry Clay against a government surplus and thought the
surplus should be distributed to the states.
• Hoped to remove an argument for cutting the tariff
• 1838 Federal surplus came from bank notes issued to
speculators
• Westerners argued to lower surplus by lowering price of land
• Southerners argued to lower surplus by lowering tariff
• Jackson agreed to distribute most funds to states in
proportion to the number of delegates in the House
and Senate. Payments to be made quarterly in
1837

50. THE ECONOMY FALLS INTO THE DITCH
• The Specie Circular
• Government would accept only gold or silver coins in
payment for land
• Few settlers had gold or silver
• Speculators had gold and silver
• Settlers now at the mercy of speculators

51. THE ECONOMY FALLS INTO THE DITCH
• State Banks had to pay Federal deposits to State
governments which resulted in funds being
withdrawn from the Pet Banks.
• Pet banks had to call in loans immediately because they
did not have the money to make the payments
• Specie requirement further limited the money
supply because Banks that had been issuing bank
notes to speculators that were not backed up by
specie now had to stop

52. THE ECONOMY FALLS INTO THE DITCH
• Inflation in the early 1830’s
• Before 1836 caused by increase of gold and silver payments
to U.S. by England, France and Mexico for investment and
purchase of American cotton and other products
• British credits enabled Americans to import British products
without exporting gold and silver
• By 1836: tighter British economy caused decline in British
investments and lowered British demand for U.S. cotton
(which they could get more cheaply from India)
• Settlers in Western territories planted cotton and increased
the amount of American cotton on the market (thereby
lowering the price)

53. FINANCIAL PANIC OF 1837
• May 1837: New York banks suspended gold and
silver payments on bank notes
• Created fears of bankruptcy and set off runs on the banks
• Banks around the country were overextended as they did
not have enough cash on hand to cover depositor’s
withdrawals
• Brief recovery in 1838 when Britain had a bad wheat harvest
and was forced to import American wheat
• 1839 a bumper crop of American wheat and a collapse of
cotton prices set off a depression that lasted until the mid
1840’s

54. MARTIN VAN BUREN AND THE NEW
PARTY SYSTEM
• The worst of the depression of 1837 occurred during
Martin Van Buren’s presidency.
• The Whig Coalition: united by opposition to Jackson
• National Republicans
• Anti-Masonic Party
• Democratic Party who opposed Jackson’s policy on
nullification and enforcement of the tariff.
• Portrayed Jackson as King Andrew I and Jacksonian Democrats
(who had taken over the Democratic Party) as Tories—
supporters of a tyrannical king reminiscent of the Revolutionary
War
• Portrayed themselves as Whigs, reminiscent of the patriots of the
Revolutionary War

56. “THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT”

57. WHIGS: ECONOMIC NATIONALISM
AND PROTESTANT MORALITY
• Economic Nationalists, supporters of the National
Bank in the North and Mid Atlantic States
• Large Southern Planters and slave owners in
Southern states
• Large Farmers who valued government funded
improvements in the West
• Evangelical Protestants: Presbyterians, Baptists and
Congregationalists who promoted social reforms
such as abolition and temperance (New England)

58. ELECTION OF 1836
• Whig candidates
• Daniel Webster (Massachusetts legislature)
• Hugh Lawson White (anti-Jackson Democratic Party in
Tennessee legislature)
• William Henry Harrison of Indiana (Anti-Masonic convention
in Harrisburg Pennsylvania
• Whigs in the South argued that Van Buren was “soft” on
slavery and southern voters could trust only another
Southerner to enforce and protect slavery

59. CAPITOL FASHIONS FOR 1837

60. ELECTION OF 1836

61. EFFECT OF THE PANIC OF 1837
• Fall 1837: 1/3 of workforce was unemployed
• Remaining workers had wages cut by 30 to 50%
• Prices on food and clothing rose
• No government aid
• Charities only
• Winter of 1837 New York newspaper report: 200,000
people “in utter and hopeless distress with no
means of surviving the winter but those provided by
charity”

62. MARTIN VAN BUREN
• Did not believe that government should assist
farmers, businessmen, or provide relief for jobless or
homeless.
• Did believe in taking steps to keep the federal
economy healthy
• Special Session of Congress: postpone the distribution of
the surplus (which would soon disappear into a deficit)
• Approved issue of Treasury Notes to cover immediate
expenses
• Independent Treasury Act of 1840
• Government keep its funds in its own vaults
• Government should use only hard currency (specie) to do
business

63. THE LOG CABIN AND HARD CIDER
CAMPAIGN
• Whigs: William Henry Harrison nominated
• Military victory at Battle of Tippecanoe against the Shawnees in 1811
• Governor of the Indiana Territory
• Congressman and Senator from Ohio
• Whigs produced no campaign platform reasoning that taking
a stand on anything would enable Democrats to rally in
opposition
• “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” campaign slogan
• Baltimore Republican: “…upon the condition of his receiving a pension
of $2,000 and a barrel of cider, General Harrison would no doubt
consent to withdraw his pretensions and spend his days in a log cabin
on the banks of the Ohio”
• The Log Cabin became the theme of Harrison’s campaign
• Harrison actually born to a prominent planter family in Virginia and had all
the advantages of a planter
• Van Buren was the son of a tavern owner who had pulled himself up through
his own labors.

65. THE UNION MUST BE PRESERVED

66. RESULTS OF ELECTION OF 1840

68. OBSERVATIONS ON JACKSONIAN
DEMOCRACY
• Does Andrew Jackson’s persona and the era itself
represent a transformative period in United States
History?
• By 1840 both political parties were organized down to the
precinct
• The proportion of white men who voted, tripled
• 27% in 1824 to 78% in 1840
• Jackson came into power supporting the idea of returning
to the Jeffersonian vision that government would play a
limited role
• Skepticism of the involvement between government and
business

69. QUESTIONS ABOUT JACKSON’S VISION
• What does free enterprise mean?
• Is it limited to the farmer or planter or does it include the
business entrepreneur or speculator?
• Does government encouragement of free
enterprise reaffirm the Federalist vision of
“nationalist economics”?
• What is the appropriate level of regulation of
monetary policy?
• How to balance the interests of states rights and the
need for a union?

70. CRITICISMS OF JACKSON
• The spoils system excludes the fittest from office
• Vast difference between local issues and the national
debates. National debates used to cover up local concerns
and snares to catch voters.
• Jackson as a frontier opportunist for whom democracy was a
means for winning favor of the people (populism)
• Greater participation in politics was essentially a northern
development. White men in the South faced a significant
property requirement (50 acres in North Carolina)
• Jackson supported slavery, engaged in ethnic cleansing and
perhaps enabled genocide against Native Americans
• Laissez-fare policy became the justification for the growth of
unregulated corporate powers that made Biddle’s National
Bank seem puny by comparison.

71. A NOTE ABOUT IMAGES USED IN THIS
PRESENTATION
• All images except election result maps are from Harper’s
Weekly American Political Prints 1766-1876
• http://loc.harpweek.com/LCPoliticalCartoons/Index
• Another great index for political cartoons and ephemera is the
Library of Congress American Memory collection of broadsides
and ephemera
• http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/rbpehtml/
• Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources
has many images and resources
• http://www-sul.stanford.edu/index.html
• http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/hasrg/abhist/ushist/colonial.html
• All Maps of the Presidential elections are in the public
domain offered by the Department of the Interior
• http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/elections.html#list