Elieth Serrano-Ortega HIS 166 (86287) Essay #4 due November 14, 2015 In the 1790s, Andrew Jackson briefly served in Congress advocating the interests of western farmers and merchants who desired free access to the Mississippi River. Once he returned to his private life, he was drawn back to public service for the War of 1812. The Battle of New Orleans earned Jackson nationwide glorification for his role. However, Jackson stayed out of politics, spending most of his time thinking about the perceived insults and mistreatment in connection with his unauthorized ventures in Florida. What returned Andrew Jackson to the national spotlight was an unusual set of political circumstances. As the final term for Monroe approached, no obvious heir …show more content…
Andrew Jackson’s key contribution to the new party system was the practice of using government patronage to reward partisan loyalty. He was the first to release large numbers of federal officeholders upon assuming the presidency. Jackson defended a new policy that civil servants should rotate rather than forming an embedded entitled class. He did not merely appoint men to supported him in the election, rather appointed those who showed great loyalty. Andrew Jackson then devoted himself to the cause of Indian removal. After winning the battle, he took on two other causes that would come to define his presidency. First came the nullification crisis, which reinforced and reflected the growing hatred between Jackson and Calhoun, and the second issue was related to finance. Jackson’s battle against Calhoun and nullification was immediately concealed by his political showdown with the Second Bank of the United States. When Andrew Jackson assumed presidency, the bank was regulating the nation’s currency supply to the satisfaction of most members of the financial community and the economy was enjoying relative stability. Jackson argued that it concentrated power in a private corporation, so he opposed the