How Did The Jackson Follow The Era Of The Jacksonian Democracy

The Jacksonian democracy, was the political movement toward greater democracy for the common man, characterized by Andrew Jackson and his supporters. Jackson's policies followed the era of the Jeffersonian democracy which dominated the previous political era. However the Jacksonian period never produced true economic and social equality. Power and privilege, for the most part, remained in the hands of an “uncommon” elite category of powerful men. Jacksonians in power often proved to be as opportunistic and manipulative as the patricians, they displaced, and they never embraced the principle of economic equality. “Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government,” Andrew Jackson observed (Shi &Tindall, 2013, P.441, 442).

Jacksonians demanded elected judges and rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. Jackson believed that politicians should serve only one term in government before returning to the status of a private citizen. Jackson also believed that officials who stayed in office too long, would grow corrupt. So he vowed to replace federal officials with his own supporters. Jackson's equal political policy became known as "The Jacksonian Democracy," subsequent to ending what he termed a "monopoly" of government by elites. Jeffersonian opposed inherited elites, but favored educated men while the Jacksonians gave little weight to education. During Jackson’s first year in office, however he replaced only about nine percent of the appointed officials in the federal government, and during his entire term he replaced less than 20 percent (Shi &Tindall, 2013, P.444, 445). The Jacksonian democracy exhibited social inequality by replacing federal officials with his own supporters. This would have allowed Jackson to end the monopoly of government elites, if he would have replaced more than 20

The state lost almost 70 thousand residents to emigration during the 1820s. It would lose nearly twice that number by the 1830s, with many of them moving to Texas. Most South Carolinians blamed the high federal tariff for raising the price of manufactured goods imported from Europe. Not only were tariff rates increasing, but so too was the number of products subject to tariffs. New tariffs were placed on woolens, iron, glass, hemp, and salt. Insofar as tariffs discouraged the sale of foreign goods in the United States, they reduced the ability of British and French traders to buy southern cotton because of the loss of export income. This situation worsened already existing problems of low cotton prices and thousands of acres of farmland exhausted from perennial planting. Compounding the South Carolinian’s malaise was growing anger over the North’s moral criticism of slavery. The unexpected passage of the Tariff of 1828, called the “tariff of abominations” by its critics because it pushed rates up to almost 50 percent of the value of imported goods. South Carolina Exposition and Protest, written December 1828 by John C. Calhoun, had actually been an effort to check the most extreme states’ rights, advocates with fine spun theory, in which nullification stopped short of secession from the union. The unsigned statement accompanied resolutions of the South Carolina legislature protesting the