Andrew Jackson & the Rise of Jacksonian Democracy

Context: From Economic Upheaval to Political Revolution

• Industrial, economic & transportation transformations of the $1820\text{s}$ triggered parallel political convulsions.
  • Old order = President John Quincy Adams (nationalist, elite, tied to Clay’s “American System”).
  • Growing discontent crested in the election of the pugnacious Tennessean Andrew Jackson in $1828$.
• Jackson’s personal mystique
  • National hero after the Battle of New Orleans ($1815$).
  • Frontier duelist: multiple duels, famous street-gunfight with the Benton brothers; Thomas Hart Benton later became his staunch Senate ally.
  • Cultivated an image of rugged Western manhood that resonated with non-elite whites.

Democratic Expansion (“Universal White Manhood Suffrage”)

• Revolutionary language of equality (“all men are created equal”) taken literally by poorer white males.
• By Jackson’s election $\text{(}1828\text{)}$ most states had abolished property requirements for white men:
  • New Western states (Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Maine) entered the Union with no property restrictions.
  • Older states followed: Connecticut $1818$, New York & Massachusetts $1821$, etc.
  • Hold-outs by the late $1820\text{s}$: Rhode Island, Louisiana, Virginia.
• Electoral College democratized
  • Early system: state legislatures chose electors.
  • By $1832$ every state except South Carolina allowed the popular vote to select electors.
• Exclusions & limits
  • Women lost remaining voting rights (e.g., New Jersey rescinded female suffrage $1807$).
  • Enslaved people barred; free Blacks heavily restricted (property tests in North; total exclusion in South).
  • Some Midwest states tried—unconstitutionally—to bar Black immigration.
  • Thus the “Age of the Common Man” was really the “Age of the Common White Man.”

New Campaign Styles & Party Mechanics

• Elections now required personal outreach, entertainment, and mass rallies:
  • Torch-light parades, picnics, barbecues, barrels of hard cider/whiskey.
  • Speeches shifted from lofty theory to fiery partisan harangues.
• Demagoguery became a democratic art: appeals to racial, sectional, class prejudices.
• Birth of modern party organization
  • Martin Van Buren (NY) & the Bucktails / Albany Regency perfected caucus discipline, patronage, newspaper networks, voter registration drives.
  • Purpose: harness the popular will, defeat entrenched elites (e.g., DeWitt Clinton).
• Faction around Jackson + Van Buren = Democratic Party (heirs of Jeffersonian Republicans) opposing Adams & Clay’s nationalists.

Myth vs. Reality: The “Big Block of Cheese”

• Pop-culture (e.g., The West Wing) portrays Jackson opening White House doors for democracy & free cheese.
• Reality:
  • $1835$ Upstate-NY cheesemaker shipped a $7\,000\text{ lb}$ cheddar (beating Jefferson’s earlier $1\,200\text{ lb}$ block).
  • By $1837$ the massive wheel was a disposal problem → doors opened to $\approx$ $10\,000$ visitors mainly to remove the cheese.
  • Illustrates superficial vs. substantive democracy.

Spoils System (“Rotation in Office”)

• Jackson saw federal bureaucracy as elite-dominated.
• Fired $\approx$ $40\%$ of presidential appointees.
• Justified patronage: “To the victor belong the spoils.”
  • Argued true democracy meant ordinary supporters, not life-tenured technocrats, should hold office.
• Ethical implication: efficiency & expertise sacrificed for partisan loyalty → cartoonists depicted a corrupt “Spoils Hydra.”

Nullification Crisis (Tariffs & State Sovereignty)

Background

• Tariff of $1828$ (“Tariff of Abominations”) angered South; authored John C. Calhoun’s South Carolina Exposition and Protest → compact theory & state power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws.

Senate Showdown $1830$

• SC Sen. Robert Hayne: denounced northern economic policy, championed nullification.
• Daniel Webster (MA): iconic rebuttal
  • Constitution = “the people’s government,” not a league of states.
  • Famous line: “Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever.”

Jefferson Birthday Dinner $04/13/1830$

• Jackson toast: “Our Federal Union—it must be preserved.” (stares at VP Calhoun)
• Calhoun response: Union next to liberty but based on states’ rights.

Escalation $1832$

• Clay’s partial Compromise Tariff passed; SC still dissatisfied.
• Columbia Convention (Nov $1832$): nullified $1828$ & $1832$ tariffs; threatened secession.
• Jackson’s response (Dec $10$): nullification = incompatible with Constitution; vowed $50\,000$ troops, pushed Force Bill through Congress.
• Clay & Calhoun brokered Compromise Tariff of $1833$ (gradual reductions to $20\%$ by $1842$) → SC rescinded nullification but petulantly nullified Force Bill (symbolic).
• Long-term significance: precedent for executive defense of Union; foreshadowed Civil War debates.

The Bank War

Roots

• Second Bank of the United States chartered $1816$, set to expire $1836$.
• Westerners scarred by Panic of $1819$ blamed BUS for loan calls & foreclosures.
• Jackson (land speculator hurt in $1819$) saw BUS as a monster monopoly aiding elites, British investors, and East-coast financiers.

Re-charter Gambit $1832$

• Henry Clay & BUS president Nicholas Biddle pushed early re-charter.
  • Strategy: force Jackson to sign (bank survives) or veto (lose re-election).
• Jackson’s Veto Message (July $1832$): populist rhetoric—BUS enriches investors, drains “farmers, mechanics & laborers.”
• Election of $1832$: Jackson landslide; Clay wins only $6$ states; Anti-Masonic candidate William Wirt takes Vermont.

“Kill the Bank” Strategy

• Jackson ordered deposits removed.
  • Treasury Sec. Lewis McLane resisted → promoted.
  • Sec. William Duane resisted → fired.
  • Roger B. Taney (recess appointment) complied: stopped federal deposits $10/01/1833$; shifted funds to “pet banks.”
• Senate (led by Clay) later rejected Taney, censured Jackson—but damage to BUS irreversible; charter lapsed $1836$.

Specie Circular & Panic of $1837$

• Lack of BUS oversight → explosion of speculative lending; paper notes $
  abla$ quality; supply $3\times$ to >\$150\,000\,000 by $1837$.
• Specie Circular ($07/11/1836$): federal land sales payable only in gold/silver or hard-backed notes → sudden contraction.
• Concurrent British recession ↓ cotton demand & halted capital exports.
• Cascade:
  • May $1837$: banks suspend specie payments; >600 failures.
  • September $1837$: eastern factories shutter; food riots amid wheat blight.
  • Depression endures $1837{-}1842$.
• Political fallout: Van Buren (elected $1836$) blamed; Democrats lose prestige.

Birth of the Whig Party & Election of $1840$

• Opposition to “King Andrew I” merges National Republicans, Anti-Masons, disaffected Southerners → Whigs (name evokes British anti-monarchists).
  • Core charge: Jackson used $12$ vetoes (> all predecessors combined), ignored Congress, acted autocratically.
• $1836$: Whigs run multiple regional candidates; strategy fails, Van Buren wins.
• Panic weakens Democrats → Whigs adopt Jacksonian showmanship:
  • Nominee William Henry Harrison (“Old Tippecanoe” – hero of $1811$ battle vs. Shawnee) + John Tyler.
  • Log Cabin & Hard Cider imagery: portray Harrison (actually Virginia aristocrat) as humble frontiersman; paint Van Buren (truly modest origin) as effete dandy.
  • Slogan: “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!”
• Result: Whig victory $1840$—first successful use of mass-marketing politics against Democrats.

Jackson’s Image & Ethical Legacy

• Long celebrated for:
  • Defense of Union during Nullification Crisis (later cited by Lincoln & Unionists).
  • Expansion of political participation for poor white males.
  • Populist attack on financial elites (Bank War).
  • Personal bravery: survived assassination attempt $01/30/1835$ (two pistols misfired; Jackson beat assailant with cane).
• Modern reassessment emphasizes darker facets (to be detailed next lecture):
  • Slaveholder & planter elite despite “common man” persona.
  • Aggressive Indian removal & frontier violence.
  • Spoils-based corruption & economic destabilization leading to Panic.
• Illustrates historiographical evolution: earlier textbooks valorized Jacksonian Democracy; contemporary scholarship critiques its racial & economic limits.

Chronological Reference Sheet (select numbers in LaTeX)

• $1807$: NJ rescinds women’s suffrage.
• $1815$: Battle of New Orleans.
• $1818{-}1821$: Old states drop property tests (CT, NY, MA).
• $1819$: First major post-war depression.
• $1824$: “Corrupt Bargain” election (Adams + Clay).
• $1828$: Tariff of Abominations; Jackson elected President.
• $1830$: Hayne–Webster debate; Jefferson Dinner toasts.
• $1832$: Tariff revision; Jackson vetoes BUS; re-elected.
• $1833$: Compromise Tariff & Force Bill; removal of deposits.
• $1835$: Giant cheese delivered; assassination attempt.
• $1836$: Specie Circular; BUS charter expires; Van Buren wins.
• $1837$: Panic begins.
• $1840$: Harrison–Tyler victory (Whigs).