How Democratic Was Andrew Jackson A Democrat?

Andrew Jackson’s party was known as the Jacksonian Democratic Party, but was he truly a democrat? Andrew Jackson, also known as Old Hickory was known as the “common man” as he came from the lower class to president, but that doesn’t really make him democratic. Some people say that he was a democratic man as his intentions were to give the people more power and say in the government’s decisions. Others say that his intentions were to be democratic, although the effects were not. Andrew Jackson was not democratic due to the unfair treatment of the Indians and introducing the spoils system, the declining of the bank charter, and the Nullification Crisis.

Andrew Jackson was not democratic since the act of removing Indians and the spoils system

According to the “Memorial of the Cherokee Nation” it states, “But if we are compelled to leave our country, we see nothing but ruin before us. The country west of the Arkansas territory is unknown to us”. Jackson’s Indian Removal act seemed very friendly to those who wanted to be able to expand west or purchase more land, especially the farmers and miners as there was a lot of fertile land and gold in the land between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains. However, this describes how Jackson forcefully pushed out the Native Americans with a rigorous manner and was being abusive with his power. For example, the Worcester v Georgia case came to a conclusion where the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for Georgia to kick the Cherokee Tribe from their land. Instead, Jackson in his term decided to push thousands of Indians hundreds of miles away from their land on what was called the Trail of Tears. Even though this was a bad reputation for the country, he proceeded to enforce these laws on the Indians. Secondly, Andrew Jackson’s spoil system highlights the inequality of Andrew Jackson’s presidency. This portrayed

Jackson saw the bank as unconstitutional and only ran or worked by the wealthy, therefore, he wanted the bank to be destroyed. Therefore, Jackson wanted to veto the renewal of the charter of the second bank of the United States. Daniel Webster’s Reply to Jackson’s Bank Veto Message said “It manifestly seeks to inflame the poor against the rich…resentments of the other classes.” This describes that Jackson preferred the poor people over the rich and the entire nation’s economy. This veto led to the economy collapsing and caused the Panic of 1837. Like this veto, Jackson has vetoed multiple times and was the first president to show the power of vetoing to the nation. Federal officials such as congress members and other politicians saw this as a great disadvantage for Jackson since he basically stood against how much he says that he respects democracy and majority rules. Inferring to a cartoon posed by the opposite party in the presidential election of 1832 from Library of Congress, Jackson seemed like a monarch since Jackson was shown as wearing a crown. The Veto scroll in Jackson’s hand represents the excessive use of veto he used during just his first presidency. He poses to stand or step on the torn apart sacred documents of the United States which show his tendencies to be a tyrannical