Unit 4
An Era of Expansion
Chapter 12: The Jackson Era
I. Champion of the People
A. A Disputed Election- There were four candidates for President in 1824. Each had support in different parts of the country.
1. John Quincy Adams came from a famous New England family, the son of Abigail and John Adams.
a) He was a talented diplomat.
b) He served as Secretary of State under President Monroe.
c) People admired Adams for his intelligence and high morals.
d) Yet to many, he seemed hard and cold.
2. Henry Clay, by contrast, was charming.
a) Speaker of the House of Representatives.
b) In Congress, Clay proved to be a skillful negotiator.
c) Despite his abilities, Clay was less popular than the other candidate from the West, Andrew Jackson.
3. To most Americans, Andrew Jackson was the "Hero of New Orleans." They also saw him as a man of the people.
a) Although Jackson owned land and slaves, he had started life poor.
4. William Crawford was favored in the South but he became too ill to campaign.
5. The "corrupt bargain." In the election, Jackson won a majority of the popular vote, but no candidate won a majority of electoral votes. As a result, the House of Representatives had to choose the President from among the top three candidates.
a) Clay, who finished fourth, was out of the running. As
Speaker of the House, though, he could influence the results.
b) Clay urged his supporters in the House to vote for Adams.
c) After Adams won, he made Clay his Secretary of State.
B. An Unpopular President
1. Adams knew that the election had angered many Americans. To "bring the whole people together," he pushed for a program of internal improvements. His plan backfired, however, and opposition to him grew.
2. Promoting Economic Growth - Like Alexander Hamilton, Adams thought that the federal government should promote economic growth.
a) He wanted the government to pay for new roads and canals.
b) These internal improvements would help farmers to transport goods to market.
c) He suggested building a national university and an observatory for astronomers.
d) He also backed projects to promote farming, manufacturing, science, and the arts.
3. As Adams discovered, most Americans objected to spending money on such programs. In part, they feared that the federal government would become too powerful.
a) In the end, Congress approved money for a national road and some canals. It turned down most of Adams's other programs.
4. A Bitter Campaign.
a) 1828 - Andrew Jackson was Adams' only opponent.
b) Jackson supporters attacked Adams as an aristocrat, or member of the upper class.
c) Adams’ supporters replied with similar attacks. They dubbed Jackson a "military chieftain." If Jackson were to be elected, they warned, he could become a dictator like Napoleon Bonaparte.
5. Jackson won the election easily. His supporters cheered this victory for the common people.
a) By common people, they meant farmers in the West and South and urban workers in the East.
C. New Views of Democracy
1. During the 1820s, the United States was growing rapidly.
a) New states had been admitted -number of voters increased.
b) Many new voters lived in the western states between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. Frontier life encouraged a democratic spirit.
c) In the western states, any white man over age 21 could vote.
d) Eastern states - reformers fought to end the requirement that voters own land. By the 1830s, they succeeded. Except for Rhode Island, every eastern state extended suffrage, or the right to vote, to all white men.
2. Despite these reforms, large numbers of Americans did not have the right to vote.
a) They included women, Native Americans, and most African Americans. Slaves had no political rights.
b) While more white men were winning suffrage, free African Americans were losing this right. Most northern states had allowed free African Americans to vote in the early 1800s. By 1830, only a few New England states allowed African Americans to vote.
D. New Political Practices - In the 1830s, new political parties grew out of the conflict between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
1. Two New Parties.
a) People who supported Adams and his programs for national growth called themselves National Republicans. (1834- they became known as Whigs)
b) Whigs included most eastern business people, some southern planters, and former Federalists.
c) Jackson and his supporters called themselves Democrats. Democrats included frontier farmers as well as factory workers in the East.
2. New ways to choose candidates- In the past, powerful members of each party held a caucus, or private meeting. There, they chose their candidate. Critics called the caucus system undemocratic because so few people took part in it.
a) In the 1830s, both parties began to hold nominating conventions.
b) Delegates from the states chose the party's candidate for President.
c) Gave people a more direct voice in choosing future leaders.
3. As parties took shape, a new figure emerged‑the professional politician. These people organized campaigns and worked to get out the vote.
4. The spirit of democracy affected American attitudes toward one another.
a) Americans no longer felt that the rich deserved special respect.
II. Jackson in the White House
A. Tough as Hickory
1. Andrew Jackson's inauguration in 1829 reflected this spirit of equality.
a) For the first time, thousands of ordinary people flooded the capital to watch the President take the oath of office.
"It was a proud day for the people. General Jackson is their own President."
2. Jackson showed his toughness during the American Revolution. At age 13, he joined the Patriots but was captured by the British.
a) When a British officer ordered the young prisoner to clean his boots, Jackson refused.
b) The officer slashed the boy's hand and face with a sword. Jackson bore the scars of that attack all his life.
3. A Self‑Made Man - As a young man, Jackson studied law in North Carolina.
a) Later, he moved to Tennessee, where he set up a law practice. b) He became wealthy by buying and selling land.
c) While still in his twenties, he was elected to Congress.
d) Jackson won national fame during the War of 1812.
4. Jackson's nicknames told something about his character.
a) The Creeks called him Sharp Knife.
b) His own men gave him another name‑old Hickory- he was hard and tough as the wood of a hickory tree.
B. The Spoils System
1. After taking office, Jackson fired many federal employees. He replaced them with his own supporters. Although most other Presidents had done the same, Jackson did it on a larger scale.
a) Critics complained that Jackson was rewarding Democrats who had helped elect him. He was not choosing qualified and experienced men, they said.
b) Jackson replied that he was fulfilling a goal of democracy by letting more citizens take part in government.
c) He felt that ordinary Americans could fill government jobs.
2. A Jackson supporter explained the system another way.
"To the victor belong the spoils"
a) Spoils are profits or benefits.
b) From then on, the practice of rewarding supporters with government jobs became known as the spoils system.
3. Jackson rewarded some supporters with Cabinet jobs. Only Secretary of State Martin Van Buren was truly qualified for his position.
a) Jackson seldom met with his official Cabinet. Instead, he relied on advice from Democratic leaders and newspaper editors.
b) Because Jackson met with them in the White House kitchen, the group became known as the kitchen cabinet.
C. The Bank War - President Jackson waged war on the Bank of the United States. He thought that it was too powerful.
1. The Bank had great power because it controlled loans made by state banks.
a) When the Bank's directors thought that state banks were making too many loans, they limited the amount these banks could lend.
b) The cutbacks angered farmers and merchants who borrowed money to buy land or finance new businesses.
2. Jackson and other Democrats saw the Bank as undemocratic.
a) Although Congress had created the Bank, it was run by private bankers.
b) Jackson especially disliked Nicholas Biddle, president of the Bank since 1823.
c) He came from a wealthy Philadelphia family.
d) He was well qualified to run the bank but Jackson believed that Biddle used the Bank to benefit only the rich.
e) He also resented Biddle's influence over certain members of Congress.
3. Biddle and other Whigs worried that the President might try to destroy the Bank. Two Whig senators, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, thought of a way to save the Bank and defeat Jackson at the same time.
a) The Bank's charter was not due for renewal by Congress until 1836. But Clay and Webster wanted to make the Bank an issue in the 1832 election. They convinced Biddle to apply for renewal early.
b) The Whigs believed that most Americans supported the Bank. If Jackson vetoed the bill to renew the charter, they felt sure that he would anger voters and lose the election.
c) Clay pushed the charter renewal bill through Congress in 1832.
4. In an angry message to Congress, Jackson vetoed the Bank bill.
Jackson gave two reasons for his veto.
a) First, he declared the Bank unconstitutional, even though the Supreme Court had ruled in the Bank's favor. Jackson believed that only states, not the federal government, had the right to charter banks.
b) Second, Jackson felt that the Bank was a monster that helped the rich at the expense of the common people.
5. As planned, the Whigs made the Bank a major issue in the election of 1832.
a) They chose Henry Clay to run against Andrew Jackson.
b) Jackson won a stunning victory. The common people had supported Jackson and rejected the Bank.
6. Without a new charter, the Bank would have to close in 1836. Jackson did not want to wait.
a) He ordered Secretary of the Treasury Roger Taney to stop putting government money in the Bank.
b) Instead Taney deposited federal money in state banks.
c) They became known as pet banks because Taney and his friends controlled many of them.
d) The loss of federal money crippled the Bank of the United States.
e) Its closing in 1836 would contribute to an economic crisis.
III. A Strong President
A. The Tariff of Abominations - In 1828, Congress passed the highest tariff in the nation's history.
1. The new law benefited northern manufacturers by protecting them from foreign competition.
a) Southern planters, were hurt by the tariff.
b) An abomination is something that is hated.
2. Vice President John C. Calhoun led the South's fight against the tariff.
a) He claimed that states had the right to nullify, or cancel, a federal law that it considered unconstitutional.
b) The idea of a state declaring a federal law illegal is called nullification.
c) Calhoun raised a serious issue. Did states have the right to limit the power of the federal government?
3. Daniel Webster disagreed.
a) If states had the right to nullify federal laws, the nation would fall apart.
B. The Vice President Resigns
1. Calhoun and other southerners expected Jackson to support their view. After all, Jackson had been born in the South and had lived in the West.
a) Jackson thought preserving the Union was more important.
b) Because Calhoun disagreed with Jackson, he resigned from the office of Vice President.
c) He was then elected senator from South Carolina.
d) Martin Van Buren became Jackson's Vice President in 1833.
C. Challenge From South Carolina
1. As anger against the tariff grew in the South, Congress took action. In 1832, it passed a new tariff that lowered the rate slightly.
a) South Carolina was not satisfied. It passed the Nullification Act, declaring the new tariff illegal.
b) It also threatened to secede, or withdraw, from the Union if challenged.
2. Jackson supported a compromise tariff proposed by Henry Clay.
a) The bill would lower tariffs.
b) Jackson asked Congress to pass the Force Bill. It allowed him to use the army, if necessary, to enforce the tariff in South Carolina.
c) Calhoun gave in and agreed to Clay's compromise tariff.
d) South Carolina repealed the Nullification Act.
3. The Nullification Crisis passed. However, sectional tensions between the North and South would increase.
D. New Threats to Native Americans
1. Indian nations in the Southeast. By the 1820s, only about 125,000 Indians still lived east of the Mississippi. Many belonged to the Creek, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Seminole nations.
a) The Indians wanted to live in peace with their white neighbors. Their land, however, was ideal for growing cotton.
b) To the land hungry settlers, the Indians stood in the way of progress.
2. Jackson sided with the white settlers.
a) At his urging, the government set aside lands beyond the Mississippi and then persuaded or forced Indians to move there.
b) Jackson believed that, such a policy would open up land to white settlers. It would also protect Native Americans from destruction.
3. The Cherokee Nation. Few Indians wanted to move. Some, like the Cherokee nation, had adapted to the customs of white settlers.
a) The Cherokees lived in farming villages.
b) They had a constitution that set up a republican form of government.
c) Sequoyah, a Cherokee, created a written alphabet for his people. Using Sequoyah's letters, Cherokee children learned to read and write.
d) The Cherokees used their alphabet to publish a newspaper.
4. A legal battle. In 1828, Georgia claimed the right to make laws for the Cherokee nation.
a) The Cherokees went to court to defend their rights. They pointed to their treaties with the federal government that protected their rights and property.
b) Led by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokees. It declared Georgia's action unconstitutional.
5. Jackson stepped in. In the Nullification Crisis, he defended the power of the federal government. In this case, he backed states' rights.
a) Georgia had the right to extend its authority over Cherokee lands, he said.
c) The President refused to enforce the Court's decision.
E. A Tragic March
1. In 1830, Jackson supporters in congress pushed through the Indian Removal Act.