APUSH Period 4 Unit D

Period 4- Unit D. The Age of Jackson

The Market Revolution

In the early 1800’s, Jefferson believed that farmers and the agrarian nature of the United States would be the cornerstone of the economy. As the population grew, the infant market revolution paced itself with the birth pains of the nation.

Even before Clay’s American System, a network of roads and canals began to “connect” the nation.

The Cumberland Road, or National Road, stretched nearly 1000 miles. It connected Maryland to Illinois. (It was started in 1811 and finished in the 1850’s.)

The completion of “Clinton’s Big Ditch” the Erie Canal, was a major connecting link between Buffalo, NY, and Lake Erie. The cost of shipping a ton of grain dropped from $100 to $5 dollars. The shipping time went from 20 days to 6 days. The results of the economic marriage between the Northwest lowered eastern food prices and increased immigration to the northwest. The Mississippi River began to lose its significance.

As the Northwest Territory (east of the MS River) became more prominent, Northeastern farmers compensated by growing specialized produce.  The South turned to cotton, supported by the sectionalism that was enhanced through the union of the Northeast and Northwest.

Sectionalism was further defined by the rapid industrialization of the Northeast.  Several unique factors contributed to industry’s rapid growth: 

1) Samuel Slater became known as the father of the American factory system when he founded the first American textile factory in 1791 in Rhode Island.  Abundant water supplied new machinery and good ports.  The decline of farming enhanced the fast industrialization of the northeast.

2) As the factories grew, the labor supply did not because of the lure of cheap land in the Northwest.  The textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts began hiring the daughters of farmers because they would work cheap, in poor conditions, and only for a short while to earn a dowry for marriage.  The Lowell System supplied the Northeast industries until the mid-1800s.

3) The influence of American inventors greatly affected the industrialization of the Northeast.  Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793.  With this invention, cotton came into more demand and the South found its cash crop to help keep an economic pace with the North. 

Whitney further explored the concept of interchangeable parts.  As a gun maker, he developed the concept of making several parts of piece of machinery of product interchangeable, instead of modeling a completely new product.  This idea enhanced the new mass production philosophy of the budding New England factories.  

These factors isolated the South.  As the Northeast and Northwest grew more economically dependent on each other, the South placed its economic eggs in one basket: the rapid growth of the cotton industry and the “peculiar institution” went hand-in hand to become the livelihood of the South.  Cotton was only profitable in volume—volume that only slave labor could provide.  Because of dissimilar economics, sectionalism, the increasing role of universal male suffrage, and the addition of new states, sections of the country began to have opposing stands on important issues.  This helped bring the “Era of Good Feelings” to an end.  

Conflict in Politics

After Monroe served his tenure, four Democratic-Republicans ran for president.

The Election of 1824

John Quincy Adams

Henry Clay

William Crawford

Andrew Jackson

Issue of the election: The end of the era of good feelings.

Jackson won the popular vote but did not have a 50% majority of the electoral votes.  This threw the election into the House of Representatives.  The top three candidates were in the House run off according to the 12^th Amendment.  

Henry Clay was the odd-man-out, but as Speaker of the same House that would choose the president, he had the power to practically “elect” the president.  On the first ballot, John Quincy Adams was elected president.  A few days later, Henry Clay was appointed the coveted position of Secretary of State.  The appearance of a “corrupt bargain” between Adams and Clay would be on the front burner for the new four years.  The “deal” convinced people that their vote did not matter.  The Jacksonians would be ready for the 1828 election.  

The tariff issue became Adams’ largest headache during his presidency.  In 1824, Congress increased the tariff of 1816 from a 23% rate to a 37% rate.  The tariff of 1828 became the battleground of the upcoming election, and the politics of the time further defined sectionalism.  

Jackson supporters attempted to use the tariff against Adams, whose support was in the industrial Northeast.  Instead of opposing the tariff, the “Westerners” supported a rate higher than the Northeast states did.  The West believed that if they raised the rate high enough, the Northeast would abandon the tariff altogether…this did not happen. 

The industrialized Northeast let the West and Middle states be “the factor” that passed what Southerners classed the Tariff of Abominations.

Since the near-50%-tariff priced foreign countries out of the U.S. market, the Northern manufacturers raised prices just below the tariff price.  This created an artificial inflation that was devastating to the economy of the South.  They had to pay outrageously inflated prices for manufactured goods, and they had to sell their cotton on the world market to countries that were subject to the harsh U.S. tariff.  

Adams’ vice president, John C. Calhoun (former war hawk from South Carolina), led the fight against the tariff by authoring the South Carolina Exposition and Protest.

The exposition denounced the Tariff as unconstitutional and unjust to the South.  The doctrine was very similar to the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.  

The doctrine further proclaimed that if a state felt that a federal law, such as the tariff, was unconstitutional, they should declare the law null and void within its borders.

For the moment, the issue of subsided with the 1828 election and the advent of Andrew Jackson.  Born in South Carolina, The Tennessee native Jackson was expected to sympathize with South Carolina’s position.

The election of 1828

Because of the 1824 election and the party of the Era of Good Feelings, the Democratic Republicans split into the Democrats and Republicans.

Republican candidate: John Q. Adams

Democratic candidate: Andrew Jackson

The issue-The corrupt bargain of 1824 became the campaign issue that asked, “Shall the people rule?”

Mudslinging also reached unparalleled levels.  Jackson married Rachel Robards in 1791.  She was a divorcee.  In 1793, a legal glitch prevented Rachel’s divorce decree from being filed.  After the glitch was corrected, Rachel and Andrew remarried.

In 1828, the Republicans accused Jackson and Rachel of being bigamists.  This accusation was made 25 years after they corrected the problem.  

During the 1828 campaign, Rachel became depressed because of the accusations of bigamy that were sensationalized by the pro-Adams newspapers.  During the “stress” of the 1828 campaign, she died.  

Jackson was victorious and opened the White House to the “common man” who ransacked it.

Jackson was called “Old Hickory” and personified individualism and popular democracy in America.  He was the first non-wealth, non-aristocrat president, and his president, and his slogan was “Let the people rule”.  Jackson believed that as the nation’s only elected official, the president was a servant of the people.  He based his constituency on two administrative principles: the “spoils system” and the “rotation system”.  

The spoils system was anchored in the philosophy of “whomever wins rules”.  To the victor goes the spoils is the practice of the victor in replacing all of the office holders of the defeated party with loyal supporters.  

The rotation system-Jackson also believed that anyone with common sense could handle a government job.  Therefore, he created the rotation system.  He rotated friends and loyal supporters in and out of public offices, allowing everyone to have the “experience of government.”  He did not allow them to stay for very long so they would not have a chance to corrupt the system. 

Jackson and the Native Americans

Because there was a lack of understanding of Native American culture, many Americans believed the Indians that lived east of the Mississippi River should be eliminated.  Jackson believed that they should be relocated.  White expansionism won the day and Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830.  The Indian Removal Act carried out the process of moving the Indians east of the Mississippi River to Oklahoma.  

Worcester vs. Georgia (1832)-After the passage of the Indian Removal Act, the state of Georgia began to occupy Indian Territory.  Worcester, a missionary living on Indian Territory, was ordered to swear allegiance to the state of Georgia.  He refused.  

Constitutional Question:  Can Georgia pass laws affecting Indian Territory in Georgia?

Answer: No

Reasoning:  The Indians signed a treaty with the federal government to obtain their lands so Georgia could not pass laws affecting the autonomous Indian areas. 

Even through the Marshall Court ruled in favor of Worcester and against Georgia, Jackson did not respect the court’s decision.  The Indian Removal Act became dominant over the Supreme Court’s decision.  The apex of the Indian Removal Act was the forceful removal of the Cherokee Indians from their homes in the Southeast and their force-march to Oklahoma.  The journey was a horrible display of suffering, sickness, exhaustion, and death.  15,000 Indians marched 116 days.  Approximately 4,000 died on the way.  The journey was given the name “Trail of Tears”.  General Winfield Scott oversaw the Trail of Tears.  The Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Seminole Indians took place in the march.  

Jackson’s Administration

Jackson ignored his official cabinet, who was appointed by the Democratic Party.  His real cabinet consisted of some tobacco spitting Tennesseans who were dubbed the “Kitchen Cabinet”.  The two regular cabinet members, who he tolerated, were Secretary of State Martin Van Buren and Secretary of War John Eaton.  

The Eaton Affair (Petticoat Wars)-Two months prior to Andrew Jackson’s inauguration, John Eaton married Peggy Margaret O’Neale Timberlake.  Her father owned a local “inn” at which Peggy worked.  To the blue-blooded wives of Washington’s socialites, of whom were also the wives of high government officials, Peggy was one of “tainted reputation”.  Led by Mrs. John Calhoun, the socialites would not let her into the social circles of Washington.

Jackson had also experienced the cruelty of socialites in Washington as they led to the destruction of his beloved Rachael.  He took the opportunity to force-feed Peggy down the throats of the blue bloods by making her the “unofficial” White House hostess for social events.  As the wives of official Washington continued to snub her led by Mrs. John C. Calhoun, the government practically came to a halt.  The atmosphere of government was poised.  

To reorganize the structure of government, John Eaton and Martin Van Buren agreed to resign.  This act allowed Jackson to ask his whole cabinet to resign.  Eaton was appointed governor to Florida and later, Ambassador to Spain.  Van Buren would become Jackson’s Vice President in 1832.  

Meanwhile, the vice-president, John C. Calhoun, was without his supporting cabinet.  In 1830, Congress allotted money for a road to be constructed across Kentucky, which was Henry Clay’s native state.  The road was a spur of Clay’s American System.  The 20 mile long, Mayville Road was set to be entirely in Kentucky.  Jackson vetoed the bill for the Mayville Road funding, claiming that it only benefited Kentucky.  Thus, it was unconstitutional.  The veto served as a slap into the face of Jackson’s rival, Henry Clay.  Jackson became known as King Veto because he vetoed more legislation than all of the previous presidents combined.  

Toward Jackson’s second term, he began lacking his stance of using federal money for internal projects.  The Washington atmosphere continued to deteriorate due to Jackson’s vetoes, the Eaton Affair, and the continuing strain between Jackson and his enemies.  The nullification issue seemed to be polarizing the sections of the nation.  

The nullification crisis-In 1830, the U.S. Senate became the site of debate over the issue of the Tariff of Abominations.  Other issues of sectionalism entered the debate.  One issue was over the price of Western lands.  The Northeast wanted the Western governmental lands to be priced high, and the money distributed to the state for internal improvements.  The West, where the lands were located, wanted the price to be cheap, so settlers would come to populate its territory.  

The North attempted to pass the Foote Resolution, a proposal to stop the sale of Western lands because the land was being sold so cheap.  Robert Hayne, junior senator from South Carolina, saw a chance to support the West by speaking against the passage of the Foote Resolution.  He believed that if he supported the West against the Foote Resolution, the West would ally with the South on the nullification issue.  

Daniel Webster, a senator from the Northeast (Massachusetts), responded to this attempt of the West and South to place states’ rights ahead of the Union.  His words broke up the budding alliance between the West and South when his thunderous speech voiced, “Liberty and union, one and inseparable!”

Jackson responded to the Webster-Hayne debates at a banquet celebrating the memory of Thomas Jefferson.  Looking at his “enemy,” Vice-president Calhoun, he said, “Our Federal Union, it must be preserved!”  As a slap to the president, Calhoun gave a counter-toast—“To the Union, next to our liberty, most dear!”

The battle lines were drawn.  In 1832, the South Carolina legislature held a convention to address the 1828 Tariff of Abominations and a newly added Tariff of 1832.

The convention passed a resolution forbidding the collection of tariffs in South Carolina.  The tariffs of Congress were nullified.  Jackson reacted! He persuaded Congress to pass a force bill, giving the President the right to use military force against South Carolina.  To diffuse the situation, Congress passed the Tariff of 1833 that lowered the tariff rate.  

The situation was diffused, but the hostile environment was not improved.  The Bank Veto (Biddle Battle) - The year of 1832 was an election year, and the 2^nd Bank of the United States became the issue of the election.  

The bank was privately owned, but full of federal deposits in an attempt to serve the public’s good and bank president Nicholas Biddle managed it.  Jackson believed that the bank was unconstitutional and was an instrument of the wealthy.  The bank also loaned money to anti-Jacksonians to help them run for political office.

Even through the bank, re-charter was not due to be voted on until 1836, Henry Clay, Jackson’s upcoming presidential opponent, persuaded Biddle to ask Congress for an early re-charter bill.

The Election of 1832  

Democratic candidate: Andrew Jackson

National Republican candidate: Henry Clay

Anti-Mason Party: William Wirt 

The Anti-Mason Party organized in response to a fear of the secret nature of the Masonic Order.  The fear was enhanced in 1826 when a New York journalist threatened to print an expose on the Masons, exposing their treasured secrets.  Soon after, the journalist mysteriously disappeared.  The Anti-Masons were the first third political party in America.  (Since the popular Andrew Jackson was a Freemason, the party failed to make an impact and soon disappeared altogether.

The issue of the election was the Bank of the United States.  Jackson turned the election into a referendum on the aristocracy of money.  It was now the rich vs. the poor.  

Jackson-219 electoral votes

Clay-49 electoral votes

Wirt-7 electoral votes

The poor always outnumber the rich!!

After the election, Jackson declared his mandate and proceeded to destroy the 2^nd Bank of the United States.  He voted the re-charter bill and withdrew all federal money from the privately owned wealth club of the northeastern rich people.

He transferred the federal funds to various state banks that supported his administration.  His critics called the banks “Pet Banks”.  Without the charter and with the loss of federal funds, the 2^nd Bank of the United States was destroyed.  State banks began to increase the printing of their bank notes (their paper money).  This caused a serious rise in inflation.  This also caused the price of western land to be highly inflated.  Payment for the land came to the government in the form of highly inflated, high-risk, and generally worthless banknotes.  

Specie circular-To slow the economic inflationary trend, President Jackson issued a presidential order known as the Specie Circular.  This order required that the government only accept gold or silver for the purchase of Western lands.  The Specie Circular backfired!  Instead of controlling inflation, the reverse took place.  People recognized that the government was refusing to accept paper money from the “state” banks, so they believed that gold and silver were the only sources of stable money.  Instead of spending it, people who had gold or silver began to hoard it.  

The Election of 1836

Like his predecessors, Jackson decided not to run again, but placed his influence behind his loyal vice-president, Martin Van Buren. 

Between 1832 and 1836, a new political party formed.  The existing Democrats supported by Jackson and National Republicans supported by Clay were rooted in the Democratic Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson.  

The sound victory over Clay in the 1832 election proved that the roots of the party were philosophically Jacksonian in nature.  The new political party was made up of all the elements against Jackson.  They were called the Whigs.  They adopted the name of English opposition to the crown.  Some viewed Jackson as abusing power, like an absolute monarch.  The main difference in the political parties was their view on the function of the federal government.  The Democratic Jacksonians believed in a limited government with a laissez-faire attitude.  The Whigs favored all of the elements of Clay’s American System to expand the role of government.  An expanded government would expand the economy.  

The Election of 1836 continued…

Democratic candidate: Martin Van Buren

Whig Candidate: Candidates were nominated in the hope of throwing the election into the House of Representatives.  Martin Van Buren won on the coattails of the retiring Jackson.  Electoral vote:  170 to 124 total.

Immediately after the election, the country went into a severe depression called the Panic of 1837.  The depression was caused by the specie circular and its economic effects.  Land speculation led to the issuance of the Specie Circular.  There were many bank notes in circulation, but people lost faith in it and hoarded their gold and silver.  Because of this, banks, businesses, and farms failed in unprecedented numbers.  

To counter the effects of the Panic of 1837, Van Buren supported the passage of the Independent Treasury Act.  This act removed the nation’s money from Jackson’s Pet Banks and placed it into independent savings institutions.  Congress hoped that the people’s confidence would return so state currencies would stabilize.  

The Election of 1840

Democratic candidate: Martin Van Buren

Whig candidate:  William Henry Harrison

In the campaign of 1840, the Whigs had the issue and the candidate.  The Panic of 1837, caused by land speculation and the issuance of the specie circular, was the issue.  The panic, thought caused by Jackson’s policies happened during Van Buren’s watch.  “Van, Van, he’s a used up man!”

William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe), the war hero, was born of humble origins.  Log cabins fitted with wheels were pulled through the streets of cities and towns to boast of his humble beginnings.  John Tyler, a states’ rightist from Virginia, was Harrison’s vice presidential candidate.  The Whigs furnished “hard cider” to their supporters as the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” won the day.  

Harrison beat Van Buren 234 to 60.  The Age of Jackson came to an end.