The Age of Jackson

The Missouri Compromise

Westward expansion brought the growing tension between the North and South to a head. In 1819, the citizens in the territory of Missouri requested admission to the Union as a new state, formed on land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Since white settlers had already transported thousands of enslaved people to the region, Missouri was likely to enter the Union as a slave state. New York Congressman James Tallmadge attached an amendment to the request for statehood prohibiting slavery in the new state and providing for the emancipation of the children of the enslaved at 25 years of age. The Tallmadge Amendment set off a firestorm in Congress, where representatives voted along sectional lines, threatening disunion and civil war. The admission of Missouri as a slave state would upset the balance of power between free and slave states, tilting the advantage toward the South. Ultimately, to avoid disunion, Henry Clay helped to pass the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state at the same time that it admitted Maine as a free state, maintaining the balance of power between North and South. In addition, the Compromise established a line along the 36°30′ north line of latitude (the southern boundary of Missouri). Above this line, Congress agreed, new western states would not permit slavery, while below it, slavery could continue to expand westward.

A Little About Jackson

Born in 1767 in the Carolinas to a Scots-Irish immigrant family of modest means, Jackson became involved in politics as a child during the Revolutionary War when he worked as a courier for the revolutionary cause. At the tender age of 13, he was captured by the British and suffered both a head injury that left him permanently scarred and an outbreak of smallpox. Jackson survived and went on to study law, amass a personal fortune, serve as a colonel in the Tennessee militia, and represent the state of Tennessee in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 1806, he shot and killed a man in a duel to defend the honor of his wife, Rachel. Jackson achieved national distinction for his performance in the War of 1812. In the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, he oversaw the destruction of 15 percent of the Creek population; the treaty that ended hostilities forced the Creek to cede over 20 million acres of their ancestral lands. Jackson is most remembered for his performance in the Battle of New Orleans, during which he led his troops to a decisive victory over the British after the Treaty of Ghent had been signed and hostilities had officially ended. In December 1817, President James Monroe authorized Jackson to lead an offensive against the Seminole and Creek Indians in Georgia and Florida, sparking the First Seminole War. Jackson ordered his troops to destroy Seminole settlements, capture a Spanish fort, and execute two British citizens whom Jackson blamed for supporting the Seminoles against white people. In 1819, the Spanish ceded all of Florida to the United States in the Adams-Onís—or Transcontinental—Treaty.

The Election of 1828

The presidential election of 1828 pitted incumbent John Quincy Adams against Andrew Jackson. Adams was the candidate of the National Republicans, while the party that arose around Jackson became known as the Jacksonian Democrats, or simply, the Democrats. Observers of the 1828 presidential election witnessed the first truly national political campaigns. Styling himself the “man of the people,” Jackson campaigned on an anti-elitist platform that attacked the eastern elites and Congressional land policies. Though Adams retained the support of New England, Jackson swept the South and West, and even took parts of the Northeast. The election marked a transition from the small, elite political parties of the past to the mass political parties that the United States continues to host today. Jackson was also an opponent of the National Bank because he believed it benefited the elites while he represented the common man. He made a series of acts/policies to shut down the banking system which eventually sent the country into an economic recession in 1837.

Jackson vs. Native Americans

Jackson early on established himself as a champion of the white settler against the interests of Native Americans. Before President, he hurt the Creek Nation during the War of 1812. As president, Jackson instituted his pro-white sentiment in a series of policies that culminated with the forced removal of Native Americans from their native lands. In 1830, Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the forced relocation of Indian tribes from their ancestral territories in the East and South to lands west of the Mississippi River. These involuntary relocations became known as the “Trail of Tears.” Those who resisted were compelled to either go into hiding or suffer violence at the hands of the US Army and white settlers keen on enforcing vigilante justice.

The Nullification Crisis

Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828, partly due to the South’s belief that he would pursue policies more in line with the interests of Southern planters and slaveholders. Indeed, Jackson had chosen John C. Calhoun, a native of South Carolina, as his vice president. Many Southerners expected that Jackson would repeal or at least reduce the so-called Tariff of Abominations and protect their interests better than John Quincy Adams had. Jackson’s failure to address the tariff issue opened a rift between the president and vice president. Calhoun authored a pamphlet titled “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” which was published anonymously and put forward the theory of nullification—the declaration of a federal law as null and void within state borders. He argued that since the authority of the federal government derived from the consent of the states, states could nullify any federal law they considered unconstitutional. Calhoun contended that the US Constitution authorized tariffs only for the purpose of raising revenue and not for the purpose of discouraging foreign competition. The theory of nullification, in maintaining that South Carolina could refuse to enforce a federal law, ushered in a constitutional crisis. Although Jackson was sympathetic to Southerners who complained that protective tariffs damaged their interests, he refused to countenance threats of nullification. Jackson supported states’ rights but viewed nullification as a prelude to secession, and he vehemently opposed any measure that could potentially break up the Union. In July 1832, in an effort to compromise, he signed a new tariff bill that lowered most import duties to their 1816 levels. This compromise measure failed to satisfy Southern radicals who wished to see the tariff repealed, and in November 1832, a convention of Southern politicians and proponents of states’ rights met to discuss nullification. The convention declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable in the state of South Carolina. The delegates to the convention threatened to secede if the federal government forcibly sought to collect import duties. President Jackson again sought to compromise. In March 1833, he signed a new tariff bill that lowered tariffs even further, thereby appeasing the South. But he also signed the Force Bill, which authorized the compulsory collection of import duties from the South—by force of arms if necessary. It was a signal to Southerners that threats of nullification and secession would not be tolerated. Though this effectively brought the constitutional crisis to an end, it did not forestall the eventual outbreak of civil war. Southern planters and slaveholders would continue to use the doctrine of states’ rights to protect the institution of slavery, and the nullification crisis set an important precedent. For some Southern radicals, the tariff issue had been a mere pretext for the threat of secession. These radicals continued to view the federal government with intense suspicion and threatened to secede every time a federal policy or law was perceived as antagonistic to the interests of the slaveholding South.