Andrew Jackson: First People's President

Andrew Jackson was the first "people’s president”. His humble frontier heritage and heroic title won support throughout the nation. Jackson was in touch with the common man and had respect for him. This for once, allowed the “people” to have a more dominant role in government, which is something that America prides itself upon today. However, this “people’s president” presidency was plagued with controversy. Andrew Jackson accomplished a great number of things during his two terms as president, however, some of his actions were quite questionable.

Andrew Jackson’s early life is what made him so beloved, at first. He exemplifies an American frontier virtue of a self-made man. Considering where Jackson came from, it was a miracle that he climbed

Another controversy of Andrew Jackson’s presidency sparked when Jackson became extremely strict with South Carolina. Though Jackson was known for strongly supporting states’ rights, however, Jackson confronted South Carolina when they decided not to allow federal tariffs. In 1832, South Carolina declared the federal tariffs passed in 1828 and 1832 null and void and prohibiting the federal tariffs in South Carolina. While urging Congress to lower the high tariffs, Jackson wanted a strong Union with the same laws, and he obtained authority to order federal armed forces to South Carolina to enforce federal laws. South Carolina backed down to Jackson, and allowed the high federal tariffs down. President Jackson earned credit for preserving the Union. This did not cause controversy, it was what happened next that lead to such a controversial problem in Jackson’s presidency. In contrast to his strong stand against South Carolina, Andrew Jackson took no action after Georgia had claimed millions of acres of land that had been guaranteed to the Cherokee Indians. Jackson disregarded that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled Georgia had no authority over Native American tribal lands. Jackson did not allow South Carolina to do as they please with federal tariffs, however, Georgia was able to do whatever they wanted when it came to taking over the Cherokee Indian’s land. Which is why this became such a controversial issue in Jackson’s presidency. Moveover, when the Cherokees signed a treaty,

Jackson appealed so well to many of the citizen of the United States, because he came from such a humble background and made the people believe he wanted to help everyone and use his democracy to get citizens more involved of the government. However, taking a look back in history it almost seemed that Jackson did many strategic things in order to gain more power. By closing the national bank Jackson was able to chose where the funding would be dealt out to. Moveover, when Jackson made sure South Carolina paid their tariffs in order to keep control over the country, which seemed fine until he did not get strict with Georgia. This shows Jackson wanted the expansion into the Western parts, which is one of the reason that circulates as to why Jackson did not like the national