How Did Andrew Jackson Abuse His Power

Andrew Jackson was the seventh president and he served from 1829 to 1837. He lost the 1824 election but won in 1828 because of expanded suffrage that allowed the common people he appealed to, to vote. During his presidency, he made many controversial decisions especially regarding Native Americans and his authoritative style of governing. Also, while he was in office there were many divisive issues, particularly about states’ rights and the power of the Federal Government. Overall, his presidency did not follow the central idea of democracy that is “by the people, for the people” and therefore it was not an era of democracy. The issues of states’ rights and nullification were prevalent during Jackson’s presidency and his administration had a role in both. Nullification is the

His use of the veto was very frequent, especially at the time. He used twelve vetoes and none of them were overridden by Congress. This was more than the previous six presidents combined and no one used more than twelve until Andrew Johnson, thirty years later. The veto is important to control Congress’s power, but using it frequently gives too much power to the President because he is making the decision to veto it himself which might not represent other views. His authoritative style earned him the nickname King Andrew I. A king is undemocratic because he has all the power in an autocratic government and so this title shows that Jackson was using too much power. He also often went against the advice of Congress, and one example of this is the Bank War. Congress agreed that the bank was constitutional and members of Congress and his cabinet advised him not to veto the bank charter, but he ignored them and made the decision to do it anyway. The autocratic nature of his decision-making overall gave him too much influence and decreased representation by limiting the number of people involved in making