7.3 The Age of Jackson

1. 7.3 The Age of Jackson

3. 1824 Election John Quincy Adams v. Andrew Jackson Jackson got majority of votes but not enough of majority of electoral votes. So who decides? The House of Representatives “I can’t believe that killing 25,000 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies him for hte various difficult and complicated difficulties of the presidency.” Henry Clay

4. 1824 Election John Quincy Adams v. Andrew Jackson Jackson followers cry “foul!” J.Q. Adams President (again) Henry Clay - new Sec. of State

5. Jackson followers split from the (only) party • they call themselves Democratic Republicans (Jefferson’s party had become the Republicans) but this will morph into today’s Democratic Party • J.Q. Adams eases voting requirements • eases himself out of office come the 1828 election

6. “Old Hickory” for 1828 Bingham

7. 1828 Election Jackson wins It is one heck of an inauguration party!

8. Jackson’s Spoils System

9. Indian Removal Act Painting by Robert Lindneux

10. Native Americans Jefferson wanted a “buffer zone” As European settlers arrived, Cherokees traded and intermarried with them. They began to adopt European customs and gradually turned to an agricultural economy, while being pressured to give up traditional homelands. Between 1721 and 1819, over 90 percent of their lands were ceded to others. By the 1820s, Sequoyah's syllabary brought literacy and a formal governing system with a written constitution

11. Why Remove the Native Americans? In 1830--the same year the Indian Removal Act was passed--gold was found on Cherokee lands. Georgia held lotteries to give Cherokee land and gold rights to whites. Cherokees were not allowed to conduct tribal business, contract, testify in courts against whites, or mine for gold.

12. The Cherokees successfully challenged Georgia in the U.S. Supreme Court. President Jackson, when hearing of the Court's decision, reportedly said, "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can.

13. The displacement of native people was not wanting for eloquent opposition. Senators Daniel Webster and Henry Clay spoke out against removal. Reverend Samuel Worcester, missionary to the Cherokees, challenged Georgia's attempt to extinguish Indian title to land in the state, winning the case before the Supreme Court. Worchester v. Ga.

14. Worcester vs. Georgia, 1832, and Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, 1831, are considered the two most influential decisions in Indian law. In effect, the opinions challenged theconstitutionality of the Removal Act and the US. Government precedent for unapplied Indian-federal law was established by Jackson's defiant enforcement of the removal.

15. Between 1816 and 1840, tribes located between the original states and the Mississippi River, including Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, signed more than 40 treaties ceding their lands to the U.S. In his 1829 inaugural address, President Andrew Jackson set a policy to relocate eastern Indians. In 1830 it was endorsed, when Congress passed the Indian Removal Act to force those remaining to move west of the Mississippi.

16. Under orders from President Jackson, the U.S. Army began enforcement of the Removal Act. Around 3,000 Cherokees were rounded up in the summer of 1838 and loaded onto boats that traveled the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, and Arkansas Rivers into Indian Territory. Many were held in prison camps awaiting their fate. In the winter of 1838-39, 14,000 were marched 1,200 miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas into rugged Indian Territory. Between 1830 and 1850, about 100,000 American Indians living between Michigan, Louisiana, and Florida moved west after the U.S. government coerced treaties or used the U.S. Army against those resisting. Many were treated brutally. An estimated 3,500 Creeks died in Alabama and on their westward journey. Some were transported in chains.

17. An estimated 4,000 died from hunger, exposure and disease. The journey became an eternal memory as the "trail where they cried" for the Cherokees and other removed tribes. Today it is remembered as the Trail of Tears

18. “Old Hickory” for 1828 Bingham

19. What is Jacksonian Democracy? • A broad-based voting public is essential to any healthy democracy. American suffrage has been expanded at different times in our history. • When was the most recent expansion of suffrage? (hint 1970) • A large increase in numbers of eligible voters occurred in 1820s and 1830s. At this time, most states extended suffrage to poor men - factory workers, artisans, laborers, and others not typically landowners. • This mov’t empowered the “common man” and is often called “Jacksonian democracy” - refering to Andrew Jackson who championed this cause and whose personal life (supposedly) symbolized the rise of the “common man” • At the time this was considered a dangerous struggle....

20. What is Jacksonian Democracy? • Your group will be assigned a reading • Your group will need to carefully read the document. Underline key phrases and words that address the question. • THE QUESTION: What were the major arguments used, pro and con, in the debate over expanding suffrage during the Age of Jackson? Which arguments were the most valid? • Also answer the questions that follow each reading. • Yes, the class will develop a thesis • Class will

21. Sanford supported expanding suffrage to the common man, believing that the “virtue and morality of the people” was a better qualification for voting than wealth and property ownership. Furthermore, even the common man contributed to the public support and thus were entitled to vote

22. Kent feared giving the vote to common men; it would jeopardize property rights, lead to laws releasing debtors from their debts, and lead to the violation of the rights of minorities by tyrannical majorities. Further, it would encourage wicked politicians to inflame the fears and desires of ignorant voters

23. Tocqueville believed that the expansion of democracy had acutally hurt American politics, discouraging distinquished men from seeking office, and leading the masses to elect less able leaders

24. Even more than Tocqueville, Mrs. Trollope was replused by the coarse and cheap nature of American democratic politics. Party spirit was of more importance than personal esteem, and truly fine statesmen like John Quincy Adams were voted out by the majority, “both drunk and sober.”

25. Bancroft believed that democracy was built on “reason, reflection, and the free expression of deliberate choice,” and that political decisions were best made by the “masses” rather than by the “corrupt” and self-serving few