ANDREW JACKSON7th President

1829-1837

1. Mudslinging – an attempt to ruin an opponent’s reputation with public

insults

2. Landslide – an overwhelming victory

3. Nullify – to cancel or make ineffective

4. Caucus – a meeting held by a political party to choose the party’s candidate

5. Suffrage – the right to vote

6. Secede – to leave or withdraw

7. Spoils system – the practice of giving government jobs to one’s supporters =>

8. Veto – to reject

• By the election of 1828 the country was again divided into parties

=> John Quincy Adams was supported by the National Republican Party

=> Andrew Jackson was supported by the Democratic - Republican Party, the beginning of today’s Democratic Party

- Jackson is called the “Founder of the Democratic Party”

• During the 1828 campaign, both parties took part in mudslinging

- Democrats claimed that Adams had betrayed the people, and Republicans reminded people of past embarrassments in Jackson’s military career

• Andrew Jackson won the election in a landslide, with 56% of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes

- This was possible because of an extension of voting rights which gave suffrage to ALL white males, and not just those who owned property

FYI: The 15th Amendment in 1870 gave African-American men the right to vote, though most could not exercise that right until the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the 19th

Amendment gave women suffrage in 1920.

• Because of his tough reputation during the War of 1812, Jackson’s troops called him “Old Hickory”

• Jackson replaced many federal workers with his own supporters

- Many disagreed with this “spoils system”, but Jackson said that a new set of federal employees would be good for democracy

• Jackson’s supporters abandoned the caucus system and allowed delegates from the states to select their party’s candidate

• The changes in voting rights and the public nominating conventions rather than caucuses ushered in a time of expanding the ideas and influences of “government of the people”. This period became a time of Jacksonian Democracy

• The South was still angry over the 1828 Tariff of Abominations

• Some leaders in South Carolina threatened to secedefrom the United States over the tariff

• Vice President John C. Calhoun supported the states’ rights doctrine, which put forth the idea that the states had the right to nullify a federal law if it went against the interests of the state

• Opponents in the North said that the American people, not the individual states, made up the Union. The conflict became known as the Nullification Crisis

• In the Senate, South Carolina senator Robert Hayne defended the state’s right to nullify acts of the federal government’

• Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster insisted that the interests of the Union must prevail. He ended his comments with these words:

“Liberty, Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”

• In 1832, Jackson urged Congress to pass a lower tariff, hoping to appease South Carolina

- In response, South Carolina passed the Nullification Act, declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 “null and void”

- Congress then passed the Force Bill in 1833; this allowed the president to use the U.S. military to enforce acts of Congress

- Henry Clay proposed a compromise to gradually lower the tariff, which was approved by Congress and South Carolina

- In spite of this compromise, both sides still held their opposing beliefs about states’ rights

• President Jackson opposed the Second Bank of the United States, believing it was an unconstitutional extension of the power of Congress

• He felt that the states should have more control over the banking system

• The Bank’s director, Nicholas Biddle, pushed to renew the Bank’s charter

- Jackson vetoed the bill and weakened the Bank’s power by moving funds into state banks

• To slow the effects of inflation, in 1836 Jackson ordered that Americans use only gold or silver (rather than paper currency) to buy government land. This order was known as Specie Circular

• In 1834, while Jackson was still in office, a new political party formed to oppose him and his party

• The new group called themselves the Whig Party; they favored the idea of a weak president and a strong Congress

• While Jackson’s economic policies lowered the national debt, they also led o increased inflation and further economic problems for the next president