Arya Mapp Mrs.Scott APUSH 12/16/22 Age Of Jackson Jackson served as the country's seventh president and rose to prominence as one of the most divisive political figures in American history. Jackson won new lands for the United States, negotiated a number of treaties to secure foreign trade openings and settle outstanding damage claims, and the Jackson Administration ended the national debt. Despite his flaws and contradictions in the controversy, such as his policies on issues like the Indian Removal Act and slavery that sparked fierce opposition, the period of 1824–1840 can be recognized as the Age of Jackson because of these accomplishments. Between 1824 and 1840, the majority of white people saw this as an opportunity for white males to …show more content…
Jackson received harsh criticism for acting without the consent of Congress since he had gone beyond the scope of his constitutional authority. During this era of his reign, he is behaving as though he is the king and is obstructing every other thing. Jackson was the first president to declare that the president is the most important democratically elected official in the country and to greatly expand executive power. Furthermore, Jackson had engaged in the Spoils System and Rotation of Officeholders during his presidency. The Spoils System addressed a method of having favoritism towards a person or group. Jackson idolizes this system and cherry picked for his cabinet and this quickly led to corruption within the government. He openly appointed people to federal positions based on merit if they had previously campaigned for him and assisted in his political career. Anyone who was not a loyal Jacksonian Democrat was fired and quickly replaced by one of his followers. Jackson also believed in a system of rotation in office. To allow the maximum number of Democrats in office he would limit the tenure to just one term and then appoint another deserving Democrat as a replacement. This led to Jacksonians having contempt for political experts and believed that any one man was as good as another. The spoils system and the rotation of officeholders helped build stronger Two-Party Systems. As well as, Andrew Jackson's election changed the presidency and shaped the development of political
When Andrew Jackson became president, he introduced the spoils system. This practice replaced government officials with the winning political party’s supporters. Jackson thought that the spoils system was democratic because it prevented government officials from the opposite party from becoming a powerful aristocracy. The spoils system was made famous from the speech given by Senator William L. Marcy of New York. To criticize Jackson’s political appointments, Senator William replied, “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.”
To begin with, President Jackson knew that before he could input any of his desired policies he had to have a fresh new start in his government. He sincerely felt that Congress wasn’t representing the American people he was always concerned about. At the start of his presidency, he got rid of senior federal officeholders that had previously served under several presidents. He replaced these officials with his own Democratic supporters. This way of selecting people for government jobs came to be called the “spoils system”.
All the while, President Jackson never changed this practice for the benefit of the people. In the Spoils System document one, there is an illustration created in 1877 depicting Jackson riding a pig followed by the caption, “ To the Victors Belong the Spoils”. This was created to show people that when citizens of a nation truly do not get to decide who is in office, the country is doomed to a system of anarchy. The document told people that Andrew Jackson was not trying to give people a chance to share new ideas, just to get enough votes and voices in for him that he could do anything he wanted to. Since the people were not in support of the Spoils System, Jockson would become an autocrat for only wanting to claim ultimate power over the people.
Andrew Jackson paved his way to the top by serving in both the House and Senate. Gained recognition as a war hero after serving in the War of 1812. He laid the framework of democracy by endeavoring to make America superior, but the ways he handled the National Bank, Spoil System, and Indian Removal made Andrew Jackson develop into a non-democratic. One way that illustrates how Jackson is non-democratic is supported by the situation that occurred for the National Bank. To begin with, Jackson sent a veto to congress discussing the bank.
He thought that many people were entitled and that “spoils belong to victors”. Jackson was ignorant of people below his wealthyness. In Spoils System 2, it states that Jackson does not have a strong feeling about the public officers, and that they should be removed immediately. It says that Jackson wanted to replace the public officials with people that will gain experience. People that have never been experienced with this kind of stuff before.
But this passage is hypocritical because Andrew Jackson introduced the spoiled system. In the spoils system, the practice of rewarding political supporters with government jobs was also widely ranged. He never balanced equality between the democrats and republicans during their lifetime of service. There were also responses to Andrew Jackson’s veto messages. For example, a finished written letter by Daniel Webster's reply to Jackson's veto message says, “Extends the grasp of executive pretension over every power of government.
His place in the executive branch made this all so real and possible. Jackson was seen as a king by many people. Due to his force of veto and ignorance of the constitution he was known as a person to abuse the power he was given. In the Jacksonian Democracy, the tariff made South Carolina unhappy, thus they put in play the Nullification Act. In response, the power crazed president was able to pass the “Force Act” which made him able to enforce law through the army.
Andrew Jackson was the 7th president of the United States of America. He won the election of 1828 by a landslide but, this was not a good thing. Jackson created the Spoil system. A system where he allowed his friends and supporters to work in office with him instead of qualified government individuals. He wanted to increase white man’s suffrage and make the common man more important to everyday life.
This act was known as the Spoils System. The Spoil Systems main goal was to appoint jobs to members of the party that was in power. Jackson believed that the officials may take their jobs for granted, he thought they may corrupt the office and so he wanted to change the system to prevent corruption. He believed that this was a good idea for the democracy. Some disadvantages of the Spoils System were that many experienced workers were fired.
The founders of the United States did their best to create a government that would not allow erroneous decisions to greatly harm the nation. They set a percent of presidents being politically sound and well-known; their beliefs for how the nation should be handled were essential to their campaign. President Andrew Jackson, however, did not follow this system, instead winning primarily by his personality and popularity amongst the common American. While his actions in office often appeared to be for the people, most had a hidden selfish side to them that he easily covered up. With the election of 1828, Jackson radically changed American politics, focusing them more on public appearance and personal character than on intelligence and political views, making personality just as, if not more important than the actual politics of a political term.
Andrew Jackson was seen as a common man the voice of the people by some. By others he was King Andrew, trampling the constitution and instigating tyranny. Jackson’s presidency impacted democracy, through his use of the veto power, and his claim of Clay creating a “corrupt bargain”, which is not a turning point for a rise in democracy despite him giving white male suffrage. During Jackson’s use of executive power weakened voice of the people.
Because of these infringements on the rights of the people, Andrew Jackson was not a champion of the common man; the nickname “King Andrew,” from his opponents was accurate. When he was elected president, Andrew Jackson felt that he needed to remove John Quincy Adams’ appointees from office. To him, the clear answer was to replace them with his own followers and friends, creating a government where only one political party was effectively represented by presidential appointments. This use of the spoils system put people who were not qualified in powerful positions simply as a reward for supporting Jackson. He also had thirteen unofficial members in his cabinet to advise him.
He started by replacing many government jobs to officials with his supporters”. This is a major reasons why Jackson was bad. He would be considered an absolute Monarch or King. An example of this is when the Supreme Court sides with the Indians against the state of Georgia, and jackson ignores the supreme court’s ruling. The “spoils system” corrupted the government because no one had a chance to get good at their
One of the biggest thing that Jackson had done as a president was in 1832. Jackson vetoed a bill that would renew the second bank charter early. Jackson stated “I will kill it!”. He said this because he didn’t like the bank at all and he believed that it made the rich richer and the poor poorer. He said in his veto message “It is easy to conceive that great evils to our country and its institutions might flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men irresponsible to the people.”
The spoils system Andrew Jackson used meant that he chose who got to work with him and be cabinet members. This wasn’t beneficial to the United States because he chose people he thought would support his needs, and didn’t choose by education and people that would word hard and contribute ideas. According to American History: Spoils System, “Appointments to office were based on the needs of the party, rather than a person's qualifications or skills to do the job… The Spoils System led abuses of political power designed to benefit and enrich the ruling party.” The spoils system only allowed the needs of Jackson’s political party to be fixed, but not any of the others.