Reasons For Andrew Jackson Dbq

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Winning against John Quincy Adams by a landslide of votes, Andrew Jackson became the new president in 1828. In addition to being a popular president, Andrew Jackson was the seventh. Not only was he a president, but also a military hero. His two terms were filled with many activities, including duels. A controversial topic after his term was how democratic Andrew Jackson was. When reading through these documents, there are many reasons why he was democratic, but there are also many reasons why he wasn't democratic. Andrew Jackson was not a democratic president because he used the Spoils System, tried to veto a national bank, and evicted the Native Americans. Andrew Jackson used the Spoils System (Document 7). The Spoils System is a system where the winning political party gives government positions to those who supported the party. Jackson gave Swartwout the position of the collector of the Port of New York (Document 7). This position was really important and a person needed to have a lot of integrity for this type of position. Jackson appointed Swartwout since Swartwout was an early supporter of Jackson, even though Jackson’s secretary of state warned Jackson that Swartwout had a reputation for being a criminal (Document 7). Swartwout ended up stealing $1,222,705.09 (Document 7). This ended …show more content…

His reasons as to why he tried to veto a national bank were that the wealthy people would try to change how the government runs just because they were selfish (Document 4). Jackson thought that he had the power to veto the bank just because he was the president. Even after Congress passed a bill to re-charter it Jackson attempted to veto it. Daniel Webster replied to Jackson’s letter saying that Jackson was trying to separate the social classes and make them fight against each other (Document 5). This made it seem that freedom was in danger under the head of the government (Document