The Impact Of Jacksonian Democracy

1032 Words5 Pages
Jacksonian Democracy was a 19th-century political philosophy that gained prevalence through the American populace, becoming the nation’s dominant political view for a generation. Spanning from the beginning of Andrew Jackson’s presidency to approximately the 1940s, it placed a much greater emphasis on the “greater democracy for the common man”. The impacts of this philosophy have extended well beyond the 1940s. Andrew Jackson himself had infused the country with greater democratic ideologies and character, something seen evidently in present-day America. Jacksonian Democrats viewed themselves as the “guardians” of the United States Constitution thought that reasoning is flawed. Afterall, actions do speak louder than words and although these Jacksonian “Democrats” had sometimes maintained their intentions, there were also multiple instances when they actually contradicted these original objectives. All things considered, Jacksonian Democrats were not the “guardians” of the Constitution but rather the epitome of an utmost failure to uphold their beliefs. These reasons include but are not limited to the support of (1) the development of a “herrenvolk democracy”, a system where minorities were disenfranchised, (2) the veto of rechartering the National bank—leading to disastrous consequences (3), and the lack of political freedom through media censorship. The darker unseen side of Jacksonian Democracy was its pro-south and pro-slavery bias, showing favoritism towards southern