AP U.S. History Ch. 9 Jacksonian America

AP U.S. History Ch. 9 Jacksonian America

The Rise of Mass Politics / *Prequel: Future of democracy?
Social chaos from rapid growth?
If so, order must be established with a clear system of authority
OR
Greatest danger was privilege and the favored status of powerful elites must be eliminated to make opportunity more widely available*
Advocates of this view won control of the government in 1829 w/the election of AJ
HOWEVER, AJ was NOT an egalitarian (all people equal and deserve equal opportunity)
He accepted the necessity of economic inequality & social gradation
AJ was a frontier aristocrat, and most people who served with him were people of wealth & standing; they were not aristocrats by birth.
They believed they rose to prominence on the basis of their own talents
Their political goal was to ensure that others like themselves would have the opportunity to do the same.
To them, democratization was not to aid farmers, laborers, African Americans, women, or Native Americans
They wanted to challenge the power of the eastern ‘elites’ for the sake of rising entrepreneurs of the South and West
March 4, 1829 Inauguration of AJ in Washington, D.C.
Wild party of AJ supporters
SCJ Joseph Story” The reign of “King Mob’ seems triumphant
Expanding Democracy / The “Age of Jackson’ did not advance the cause of economic equality
Changes in who was allowed to vote:
1787-1820’s - Propertied, tax-paying white males
Ohio & other western states granted the right to vote & hold office to all white males
Older states, afraid of losing more of their population, began to grant similar rights
MA had some problems w/ voter reform
Daniel Webster (MA): “Power naturally and necessarily follows property”
Webster & company could not stop voter reform or the elimination of the property requirement, however, the new MA constitution required that every voter be a taxpayer
New York - Conservatives insisted that taxpaying should remain a requirement for suffrage and property should remain as a requirement for state senators.
Reformers, however, citing the Declaration of Independencephrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (not property) was the main concern of society & government.
The property requirement in NY was abolished
The wave of state reforms was generally peaceful, but in Rhode Island there were problems.
The RI Charter barred more than half of the adult males from voting & the conservative legislature consistently blocked all efforts at reform
Thomas W. Dorr, a lawyer & activist formed a ‘people’s party in 1840, held a convention, drafted a new constitution and submitted it to poplar vote. It passed overwhelmingly
The existing legislature refused to accept it and submitted their own constitution. It was narrowly defeated.
The ‘Dorrites’ began to set up their own government, with Dorr as the governor.
By 1842, two governments were claiming legitimacy in RI
The Dorrites made a brief and unsuccessful attempt to gain the governorship.
The Dorr Rebellion as it was known quickly failed. Dorr surrendered and was briefly imprisoned. The episode helped pressure the old guard to pass a new constitution which greatly expanded suffrage
In much of the South, election laws continued to favor the planters and politicians of older counties and limit the influence of newly settled western areas
Slaves, of course, were disenfranchised; as property they were not considered citizens and had no political rights
Free blacks in theSouth could vote nowhere and even in the North their voting rights were limited.
PA amended its state constitution in 1838 to strip African Americans of the right to vote that they had previously enjoyed
In NO state were women allowed to vote
Nowhere was the ballot secret and often voters were required to cast a spoken vote, leaving them susceptible to bribery or political intimidation
Despite persisting limitations, the number of voters increased far more rapidly than did the population as a whole.
Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy in America / I confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress.~ Alexis de Tocqueville
In the 1830’s, this French aristocrat came from France to study American prisons
He ended up spending two years watching the dramatic political changes during the Age of Jackson
Map of de Tocqueville’s travels in the United States
The Legitimization of Party / In the 1820’s and 1830’s assumptions that party politics were evil gave way to a new view: that permanent, institutionalized parties were a desirable part of the political process. In fact, they were essential to democracy
This idea began in NY state, where Martin Van Buren led a dissident political faction known as both the ‘Bucktails’ and the ‘Albany Regency’
The Bucktails challenged the leadership of Gov. DeWitt Clinton, who had dominated NY politics for years
Van Buren & his supporters argued that only an institutionalized party, based in the general population, could ensure genuine democracy.
The Bucktails argued that party ideology would be less important than party loyalty
The use of favors, rewards, and patronage would be the principal goal of leadership
Also, above all, for a party to survive, it must have permanent opposition
Competing parties would give each political faction a sense of purpose and force politicians to be attuned to the will of the people.
By the 1830’s a fully formed two-party system began to operate at the national level.
The anti-Jackson forces began to call themselves Whigs. (They took their name from a group in the British Parliament who were opposed to the tyranny of a king.)
Jackson’s followers called themselves ‘Democrats’ (This marks the beginning of the modern Democratic Party)
“President of the Common Man” / Jackson believed democracy should offer equal protection and equal benefits to all its white male citizens and favor no region or class over another.
In fact, that meant reigning in the eastern aristocracyto accommodate the expanding West and South
It also meant a firm commitment to slavery, subjugation of Native Americans, and even women.
Jackson’s first targets were entrenched officeholders in the federal government.
Jackson believed that government jobs should be so simple that ‘men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance.’
By embracing the spoils system, the Jackson administration helped make it the right of elected officials to appoint their own followers to public office.
On of Jackson’s henchmen, William L. Marcy of New York said it bluntly, “To the victors belong the spoils.”
Jackson’s supporters also worked to transform the nomination process; instead of a caucus, they staged a national convention.
The spoils system and the political convention did serve to limit the power of entrenched elites, yet neitherreally transferred power to the people.
Appointments went to political allies; delegates to the national convention were less often common men than party members
“Our Federal Union” / Jackson believed that power concentrated in Washington restricted opportunity to only the people with political connections, BUT he also believed in forceful presidential leadership and was strongly committed to the preservation of the Union.
Jackson was ironically promoting an economic program to reduce the power of the federal government while simultaneously asserting the supremacy of the Union in the face of a dangerous challenge, and that challenge was coming from his own vice-president, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina!
Calhoun and Nullification / Calhoun has once been an outspoken protectionist and had strongly supported the tariff of 1816. However, years later Calhoun had a different perspective.
The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff passed by the Congress on May 19, 1828, designed to protect industry in the northern United States. It was labeled the Tariff of Abominations by its southern detractors because of the effects it had on the Southern economy.
The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the North which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods by putting a tax on them. The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the US made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South
By the late 1820’s, South Carolinians had come to believe that the ‘tariff of abominations’ was responsible for the state’s economic problems
With no help appearing from Congress, some in South Carolina were ready to consider a drastic solution-secession!
Calhoun’s future political hopes rested on how he met this challenge in his home state.
He developed a theory that he believed offered an alternative to secession, the theory of nullification
Calhoun actually drew his ideas from Madison & Jefferson and their Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798-1799 and also cited the 10th amendment to the Constitution
The argument went basically like this: Since the federal government was a creation of the states, not the courts or Congress, the states should be the final arbiters of the constitutionality of a law. If a state concluded that Congress had passed an unconstitutional law, then it could hold a special convention and declare the federal law null and void within the state
The nullification theory quickly attracted broad support within South Carolina.
In 1832, the controversy over nullification produced a crisis. A tariff bill was passed that offered no relief for the 1828 ‘Tariff of Abominations’
The S. Carolina legislature called for a state convention which voted to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and to forbid collections of duties within the state.
The Webster-Hayne Debate

One of the most momentous debates in Senate history began over a plan to curtail western land sales.
Senators from western states viewed this proposal by a Connecticut senator as a cynical scheme to preserve for northeastern manufacturing interests a cheap labor supply that might otherwise be lured away by the beckoning opportunities of plentiful western lands.
Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina saw in this developing Northeast-West dispute an opportunity to build a political alliance between the South and the West.
Hayne shared the view of southern planters that an agricultural system built on slavery could only survive with an unlimited supply of cheap western lands.
Hayne began the debate on January 19, 1830. He contended that states, not the federal government, should control their lands and that states should have the right to set aside certain federal laws if they wished.
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, responded by challenging the South's apparent willingness to subvert the Union for regional economic gain.
In doing so, he broadened the debate beyond land, tariffs, and slavery to a consideration of the very nature of the federal republic.
Maintaining that the North had always been the West's ally, Webster successfully shifted the debate to one of states' rights versus national power.
When Hayne again argued that a state had the right to openly defy an act of Congress, Webster returned with his classic "Second Reply to Hayne."
The chamber was jammed beyond capacity as Websterthundered that the nation was not a mere association of sovereign states, but a "popular government, erected by the people; those who administer it responsible to the people; and itself capable of being amended and modified, just as the people may choose it should be."
Overnight, the Massachusetts senator became a major national figure, respected by his many friends and enemies alike.
The Senate shelved the land sales resolution, and chances of an alliance between the South and West evaporated.
Many political issues separated Jackson from Calhoun, his Vice President. One was the issue of states’ rights.
Hoping for sympathy from President Jackson, Calhoun and the other states-rights party members sought to trap Jackson into a pro-states-rights public pronouncement at a Jefferson birthday celebration in April 1832.
Some of the guests gave toasts which sought to establish a connection between a states-rights view of government and nullification. Finally, Jackson's turn to give a toast came, and he rose and challenged those present, "Our Federal Union — It must be preserved."
Calhoun then rose and stated, "The Union — next to our liberty, the most dear!" Jackson had humiliated Calhoun in public. The nullification crisis that would follow served as the last straw. Jackson proved that he was unafraid to stare down his enemies, no matter what position they might hold.
Jackson insisted that nullification was treason. He ordered forts strengthened, and sent a warship and several revenue ships to the port of Charleston.
When Congress reconvened in 1833, Jackson proposed a bill authorizing the President to use the military to see that S.C. obeyed the law.
Jackson even said he would lead an army himself into S.C. if necessary.
Calhoun faced a dilemma as he took his place in the Senate: not one state supported S. Carolina, and even S. Carolina itself was divided.
Henry Clay, newly elected to the Senate, intervened. He developed a compromise: the tariff would be lowered gradually so that by 1842, it would reach the same level as it was in 1816
The compromise and the force bill were passed on the same day, March 1, 1833.
Jackson signed them both
In South Carolina, the convention reassembled and repealed its nullification , which they insisted forced the revision of the tariff
The Rise of Van Buren / Martin Van Buren won the governorship of New York in 1828.
He resigned in 1829 when Jackson appointed him Secretary of State
Van Buren was a member of the official cabinet as well as Jackson’s unofficial “Kitchen Cabinet”
Van Buren’s influence with the President grew even more after the Peggy Eaton affair.
1831 - Senator John Eaton, a close friend of Jackson, had married the widowed daughter of a Washington innkeeper, Margaret (Peggy) O’Neill. The local rumor mill ground out gossip that O’Neill and Eaton had had an affair prior to her husband’s death. The Cabinet wives, led by Mrs. John C. Calhoun, were scandalized and refused to attend events when she was present.
The only member of Jackson’s cabinet who was kind to Peggy was MVB, who happened to be a widower and did not have to worry about wifely disapproval of Peggy. Jackson was grateful to Van Buren, remembering how much his own wife Rachel had been hurt years earlier.
Jackson resented Calhoun’s inability to control his wife.
In 1831, Eaton and Van Buren resigned their offices, putting pressure on the other members to do likewise. These resignations gave Jackson the opportunity to appoint Cabinet officers who were loyal to him rather than Calhoun.
1832 - Citing political differences with PresidentJackson and a desire to fill a vacant Senate seat in South Carolina, John C. Calhoun becomes the first vice president in U.S. history to resign the office.
The Removal of the Indians / The was never any doubt as to Jackson’s antipathy toward Native Americans, but in many respects his views were little different from those of most other white Americans
White Attitudes toward the Tribes / In the 18th century (1700’s) many white Americans considered Native Americans as ‘noble savages.’
As white settlers pushed farther west their opinions gave way to a more hostile view.
Whites were coming to view Native Americans simply as ‘savages.’
Westerners favored removal because they feared continued contact would produce endless conflict and violence
Most of all, they favored Indian removal because of their own desire for territory
The Black Hawk War / 1831-1831 the Sauk and Fox Indians under warrior Black Hawk crossed the Mississippi River to return to tribal lands ceded to Illinois in an earlier treaty.
Black Hawk and his followers refused to honor the treaty as a rival tribe had signed the treaty.
Hungry and resentful, they wanted to return to their ancestral lands.
White settlers in the region feared this was the beginning of a substantial invasion and assembled the Illinois state militia and federal troops to repel the invaders.
White leaders vowed to exterminate the natives and attacked even when Black Hawk attempted to surrender.
Defeated and starving, the Sauk and the Fox retreated back across the Mississippi into Iowa territory.
White troops and some bands of Sioux pursued them as they fled and slaughtered most of them.
Black Hawk was captured and sent on a tour in the East where a curious Andrew Jackson arranged to meet him
The “Five Civilized Tribes” / The remaining Southern tribes also proved problematic.
The Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw had settled agricultural societies and successful economies
The Cherokee had a particularly stable and sophisticated culture including a written language and a formal constitution.
The federal government worked steadily to negotiate treaties that would remove them to the West but the process was not moving quickly enough to suit the region’s white population
1830 Congress passes the Removal Act which appropriated $$ to relocate the tribes.
The Cherokee in Georgia tried to stop the action by appealing to the Supreme Court
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 1831
Worcester v. Georgia 1832
Andrew Jackson reportedly responded with contempt, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
1835 - A treaty was signed ceding the tribe’s land to Georgia in return for $5M and a reservation west of the Mississippi. The majority of the Cherokee did not recognize the treaty as legitimate and refused to leave their homes.
Jackson sent Gen. Winfield Scott and 7,000 soldiers to round them up and drive them westward.
The Trail of Tears / 1838 – January Thousands of Cherokee included the very young and old are force marched from their homes over hundreds of miles to a harsh new home west of the Mississippi. Thousands perished along the trail.
The Cherokee were not alone. Between 1830 and 1838 virtually all of the Five Civilized Tribes had been expelled from their homelands.
Only the Seminole in Florida managed to resist the pressure to relocate, and even their success was limited
Most relocated in the West, however, in 1835 under Chief Osceola, a substantial minority refused to leave and staged an uprising.
The Seminole War dragged on for four years.
Jackson sent troops but the Seminoles were masters of guerilla warfare.
Even after Osceola was tricked into capture (under a white flag of truce) followers of Osceola remained in Florida.
1842 - After losing over 1,500 federal troops and spending $20M on the war, the federal government abandoned the war.
The Meaning of Removal / Jackson vetoed more legislation than all of his predecessors combined
Jackson and the Bank War / Whigs favor Clay’s “American System” high tariff, government actively involved in the economy; favored internal improvements; limited immigration; (Irish/Catholicism) Many New Englanders, the old Federalist class; Mid-Atlantic states; Protestants; old Northwest; Protestant “old stock” citizens
Jackson believed the bank as a corrupt tool of the rich; manipulate the economy and possibly even the government
Biddle’s Institution / Calhoun’s South Carolina Exposition & Protest
Jackson’s Force Bill “John C. Calhoun will be the first man hung”
Jackson is actually working behind the scenes for a peaceful compromise
VirginiaKentucky Resolutions in response to Adams Alien & Sedition Act. Linkage: we don’t really solve the problem!!!
Does a state have the right to ignore a federal law?? Each time a compromise is reached but the underlying issue has still not been resolved
Jackson sees bank as EVIL
Clay & Whigs see it as ‘Hamiltonian’
Clay & Biddle decide to bring the BUS up for re-charter 2 years early 1832 (election year) makes the BUS issue as THE election issue. The political machine makes the case to the people
Begins withdrawing federal funds early from the BUS and depositing the money in random state banks across the US “pet banks”
Pet Banks are thrilled; begin lending $$ out w/e-z credit terms, fuels speculation buying & risky loans
Jackson realizes what’s happening and tries to slow it down by issuing the Species Circular requiring all FEDERAL LAND payments to be in GOLD to hopes of slowing down the economy. The Circular fails and actually leads to an economic panic/crash 1837. Jackson is actually out of office by this time and leaves MVB to deal with the crisis
The “Monster” Destroyed / Please read the remaining sections on your own!!!!
The Taney Court
The Changing Face of American Politics
Democrats and Whigs
Van Buren and the Panic of 1837
The Log Cabin Campaign
The Frustration of the Whigs
Whig Diplomacy
Jackson’s Legacy

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