Jeremy Correll Andrew Jackson DBQ Essay Andrew Jackson was elected as the 7th president of the United States in 1828. He was voted in with the title of being a representative of the Democratic Party. This started the beginning of what is known as the era of the common man. This is when the common people began to have a say in what the government did. Democracy is a system of government where the people have a say and a vote in elections and what the government takes action in doing. Andrew Jackson was not as democratic as people said because he did not really support the power of the common man, he approved the Indian Removal Act, and he also practiced a spoils system of government. The purpose of democracy is for the people to have …show more content…
In Document J, it says, “By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left nut remnants” (Doc. J). This isn’t acting as a democratic because they are forcing Indians to move from their homelands, where they have been for their entire existences to a small designated area. Four different tribes all from different locations being forced to move halfway across the country is going to cause many problems such as deaths from travel and a cause for rebellion by the Indians. But it also says in Document J, that “This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land” (Doc. J). This justified the law, but it is still undemocratic because the law says “By persuasion and force.” In Document L, it documents a tiny area in what is now Oklahoma that the tribes had to move to (Doc. L). A democracy suggests that every person has the same rights. By taking land from the Indians, they are treating them as if they were inferior to the white