1. Jacksonian Democracy
Chapter 11, Lesson 1

2. The Election of 1824
From 1816 to 1824, the only real political party was the Jeffersonian Republicans.
Differences would arise within the party, with various groups who had their own interests.
In 1824, Monroe opts against a third term as he finishes his second.
Four candidates within the Republican party run for President.
William H. Crawford – former congressman of Georgia runs but his health weakened him as a candidate.

3. The Election of 1824
Favorite Son Candidates – candidates who receive backing from their home state but not the national party.
Andrew Jackson – From Tennessee, was considered a war hero of the War of 1812.
Henry Clay - From Kentucky, Speaker of the House, fought for his program of internal improvements, high tariffs, and a stronger national bank
John Quincy Adams – Of Massachusetts, son of John Adams, received support from merchants of the Northeast.

4. Striking a Bargain
In the election Jackson received the largest number of popular votes.
No candidate had a majority (more than half) of the electoral votes.
Jackson had 99 electoral votes, giving him plurality (largest single share)
Under the 12th Amendment, When no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives selects the President.
While the House prepared to vote Clay met with Adams.
Clay agreed to influence the House in Adams’ favor in exchange for position as Secretary of State (generally seen at a s stepping stone for Presidency in the future.
Adams was elected thanks to Clay’s influence
Jackson’s supporters accused the two men of making a “corrupt bargain” and stealing the election.

5. The Adams Presidency
The “corrupt bargain” had cast a shadow over the Adam’s Presidency.
Adam’s policy’s were generally against popular opinion.
Dam’s wanted a stronger navy and government funds for scientific expedition as well as wanting the federal government to direct economic growth.
These ideas disturbed those who wanted the federal government’s role to be limited.
Congress turned down many of his proposals.
This was especially true in the congressional elections of 1826, when the House and Senate were controlled by enemies of Adams.

6. The Election of 1828
By the election of 1828, the party had divided into two separate parties.
Democratic-Republicans (Democrats) – Supported Jackson.
Favored states and mistrusted strong central government.
Consisted mostly of those from the frontier, immigrants, or laborers in the big city.
National Republicans – Supported Adams.
Wanted a strong central government.
Supported federal measures (road building and Bank of the U.S.)
Many were merchants or farmers.

7. The Election of 1828
During the campaign both sides resorted to mudslinging (attempts to ruin their opponent’s reputation with insults.)
The Democratic-Republicans accused Adams of betraying the people, calling the election a contest of “between an honest, patriotism, on the one side, and an unholy, selfish ambition, on the other.”
The National Republicans fought back, creating a song to play up embarrassing incidents in Jackson’s life.
One involved Jackson’s order in the War of 1812 to execute several soldier who had deserted.
Mudslinging was not the only new element introduced in the 1828 campaign.
Election slogans, rallies, buttons, and events such as barbeques were also used to arouse enthusiasm becoming a permanent fixture of American political life.

8. Jackson Triumphs
In the election of 1828 Jackson received most of the votes cast by voters in the frontier states.
He also received many votes from the states in the South, where his support of states’ rights was popular.
John C. Calhoun (another supporter of states’ rights) who served as Adams’ vice president, switched sides to run with Jackson.
Jackson won the election in a landslide (overwhelming victory) with 56% of the popular vote and 178 electoral votes. Adams had with total)

10. Jackson as President Jackson was everything most Americans admired.
Patriot, self-made man, and a war hero.
Jackson’s Inaugural Address (March 4, 1829) – thousands of farmers, laborers, and other ordinary American crowded the capital to hear his address.
Many late went with him to a White House reception, filling the elegant rooms and essentially made a mess of things, wanting to shake the hand of the man who seemed just like them.

11. “Old Hickory”
Jackson was born in a log cabin, just as many of his supporters had been.
His parents died before he was 15.
As a teenager he fought with the Patriots during the Revolution.
Before he was 30, he was elected to Congress from Tennessee.
Jackson gained most fame during the War of 1812.
His troops called him Old Hickory because he was as tough as a hickory stick.
Many small farmers, craft workers, and others who were left out of the expanding American economy loved Jackson.
They felt his rise from Log Cabin to White House demonstrated the American success story and his popularity with the common man changed politics in Washington D.C.

12. New Voters
Jackson promised “equal protection and equal benefits” for all Americans (at least for white men)
During his term, a spirit of equality spread through American politics.
By 1815, many states had loosened or soon would loosen the property requirements for voting (used to be very strict.)
In the 1820s, democracy expanded as people who had not been allowed to vote did so for the first time.
Between 1824 and 1828, the percentage of white males voting rose from 26.9 to 57.6 percent.
Many white male sharecroppers, factory workers, and many others were brought into the political process for the first time.

13. New Voters
The expansion of suffrage continued and by 1840 more than 80% of white males voted in the presidential election.
Women still could not vote, and African Americans had few rights if any.
By 1828, 22 of 24 states changed their constitution to allow the people, rather than sate legislatures, to choose presidential electors.

14. The Spoils System
Democrats carry the spirit of democracy into government by opening up government jobs to people from all walks of life.
They were disturbed that the federal government had become bureaucracy (system which nonelected officials carry out laws)
Democrats argued that ordinary citizens could handle any government job.
Jackson fired many federal workers and replaced them with his supporters.
Obviously, the fired employees did not appreciate this, declaring that Jackson was acting like a tyrant, firing and hiring people as he wished.
Jackson believed a new set of federal employees would be good for democracy.

15. The Spoils System
One Jackson supporter explained it another way :”To the victors belong he spoils.” (Jacksonians won the election, so they reap the rewards and benefits.)
Spoils System – the practice of replacing government employees with the winning candidate’s supporters.

16. Electoral Changes
Jackson’s supporters worked to make the political system more democratic.
Abandoned the unpopular caucus system. (major political candidates were chosen by committees made up of members of Congress)
Caucuses were replaced by nominating conventions (delegates from the states selected the party’s presidential candidate.)
Democrats held their first national party convention in 1832 in Baltimore, Maryland.
It drew delegates from each state in the Union and if they could gather two-thirds of the vote, they would be selected.
It got many people involved in the selection of politicial candidates.
Jackson won the nomination.

17. The Tariff Debate
One major issue many American strongly disagreed upon were tariffs.
Jackson faced a tariff crisis while president that tested the national government’s powers.
In 1828 Congress passed a very high tariff on manufactured goods from Europe.
Manufacturers in the United States (mostly the Northeast) welcomed the tariff. (If European goods were more expensive, people would buy more American made goods)
The South hated the tariffs calling it the Tariff of Abominations (something hateful)
Critics argued that while tariffs forced consumers to buy American goods, tariffs also meant higher prices.

18. The South Protests
Southern politicians and plantation owners were ready to act.
Vice President Calhoun argued that a state or group of states had he right to nullify (cancel), a federal law it considered against state interest
Some Southerners called for Southern states to secede (break away) from the U.S. and form their own governments.
As Calhoun explores the idea a troubling questions arose.
What if a state disagreed with the federal government? Did a state have a right to go its own way.
Calhoun draws ideas from the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
Virginia Resolution – authored by Madison, federal government could not use powers not specifically delegated to them.
Kentucky Resolution – authored by Jefferson, states had the power to nullify unconstitutional federal laws.

19. The South Protests
Calhoun argued that federal government is a creation of the state, and that states had the final authority on the constitutionality of federal laws.
The alternative was to leave it in the hands of the Supreme Court or Congress to tell the people what our Constitution means and what orders we must obey.

20. Webster-Hayne Debate
Senator Daniel Webster attacks the idea nullification.
Senator Robert Hayne, a young Senator from South Carolina defended the idea that states had the right to nullify acts of the federal government, even secede.
Webster responds back by expressing that nullification could only mean the end of the Union.
His final statement was “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.”

21. Jackson Takes a Stand
After being invited to speak at a dinner held by supporters of states’ right, Jackson finally presents his stand on nullification in April 1830.
Jackson proclaimed, “Our federal union… must be preserved!”
Calhoun was shocked and disappointed (he didn’t expect that stand from the president, and answers his challenge with, “The Union – next to our liberty, most dear.”
Calhoun means that the fate of the Union takes a backseat to a state’s liberty to overrule the Constitution if its interests were threatened.
Calhoun wanted to return to Congress to represent the views for Southern interest, winning a election to the Senate in December 1832.
Not long after he resigned the vice presidency.

22. The Nullification Crisis
Southerners continued to be angry over tariffs and continued to build.
The Union seemed like it was about to split.
Congress passes a new, lower tariff, hoping that protests would die down but they didn’t.
Calhoun’s home state of South Carolina led the fight against the Tariff of Abominations.
Nullification Act - passed in the state legislature, declared that it would not pay the “illegal” tariffs of 1828 and 1832.
South Carolina legislators threatened to secede from the Union if the federal government tried to interfere with their actions.
Jackson attempts to ease the issue with a compromise bill proposed by Henry Clay.
It would lower the tariff over several years.

23. The Nullification Crisis
At the same time he makes sure the South would accept Clay’s Compromise.
Force Bill – Allowed the president to use the United States military to enforce acts of Congress.
He convinced Congress to pass the Force Bill.
South Carolina agrees to the new tariff but to show they had not been defeated, nullify the Force Act.
Calhoun and his followers saw it as a victory, insisting that it forced the government to revise the tariff.
For now, the crisis was over.
However, South Carolina and other Southern states remembered a lesson. (The federal government would not allow a state to go its own way without a fight.)