Presidency of Andrew Jackson
was the seventh president of the United States from March 4, 1829, to March 4, 1837. Jackson took office after defeating John Quincy Adams, the incumbent president, in the bitterly contested 1828 presidential election. During the 1828 presidential campaign, Jackson founded the political force that coalesced into the Democratic Party during Jackson's presidency. Jackson won re-election in 1832, defeating National Republican candidate Henry Clay by a wide margin. He was succeeded by his hand-picked successor and vice president, Martin Van Buren, who won the 1836 presidential election.
Jackson's presidency saw several important developments in domestic policy. A strong supporter of the removal of Native American tribes from U.S. territory east of the Mississippi River, Jackson began the process of forced relocation known as the "Trail of Tears". He instituted the spoils system for federal government positions, using his patronage powers to build a powerful and united Democratic Party. In response to the nullification crisis, Jackson threatened to send federal soldiers into South Carolina, but the crisis was defused by the passage of the Tariff of 1833. He engaged in a long struggle with the Second Bank of the United States, which he viewed as an anti-democratic bastion of elitism. Jackson emerged triumphant in the "Bank War" and the federal charter of the Second Bank of the United States expired in 1836. The destruction of the bank and Jackson's hard money policies would contribute to the Panic of 1837. Foreign affairs were less eventful than domestic affairs during Jackson's presidency, but Jackson pursued numerous commercial treaties with foreign powers and recognized the independence of the Republic of Texas.
Jackson was the most influential and controversial political figure of the 1830s, and his two terms as president set the tone for the quarter-century era of American public discourse known as the Jacksonian Era. Historian James Sellers has stated that "Andrew Jackson's masterful personality was enough by itself to make him one of the most controversial figures ever to stride across the American stage". His actions encouraged his political opponents to coalesce into the Whig Party, which advocated for a stronger federal role in shaping the economy through centralized banking, protective tariffs on manufactured imports, and federally funded infrastructure like canals and harbors. Of all presidential reputations, Jackson's is perhaps the most difficult to summarize or explain. A generation after his presidency, biographer James Parton found his reputation a mass of contradictions: "he was dictator or democrat, ignoramus or genius, Satan or saint". Thirteen polls of historians and political scientists taken between 1948 and 2009 ranked Jackson always in or near the top ten presidents, although more recent polls have tended to place him in the teens or lower.
Election of 1828
The 1828 election was a rematch between Jackson and John Quincy Adams, who had faced–off against each other four years earlier in the 1824 presidential election. Jackson had won a plurality, but not the required majority, of the electoral vote in the 1824 election, while Adams, Secretary of War William H. Crawford, and Speaker of the House Henry Clay also received a significant share of the vote. Under the rules of the Twelfth Amendment, the U.S. House of Representatives held a contingent election. The House elected Adams as president. Jackson denounced the House vote as the result of an alleged "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay, who became Adams's Secretary of State after the latter succeeded outgoing President James Monroe in March 1825.Jackson was nominated for president by the Tennessee legislature in October 1825, more than three years before the 1828 election. It was the earliest such nomination in presidential history, and it attested to the fact that Jackson's supporters began the 1828 campaign almost as soon as the 1824 campaign ended. Adams's presidency floundered, as his ambitious agenda faced defeat in a new era of mass politics. Critics led by Jackson attacked Adams's policies as a dangerous expansion of federal power. Senator Martin Van Buren, who had been a prominent supporter of Crawford in the 1824 election, emerged as one of the strongest opponents of Adams's policies, and he settled on Jackson as his preferred candidate in the 1828 election. Jackson also won the support of Vice President John C. Calhoun, who opposed much of Adams's agenda on states' rights grounds. Van Buren and other Jackson allies established numerous pro-Jackson newspapers and clubs around the country, while Jackson made himself available to visitors at his Hermitage plantation.
The 1828 campaign was very much a personal one. As was the custom at the time, neither candidate personally campaigned, but their political followers organized many campaign events. Jackson was attacked as a slave trader, and his conduct was attacked in pamphlets such as the Coffin Handbills. Rachel Jackson was also a frequent target of attacks, and was widely accused of bigamy, a reference to the controversial situation of her marriage with Jackson.
Despite the attacks, in the 1828 election, Jackson won a commanding 56 percent of the popular vote and 68 percent of the electoral vote, carrying most states outside of New England. Concurrent congressional elections also gave Jackson's allies nominal majorities in both houses of Congress, although many of those who campaigned as supporters of Jackson would diverge form Jackson during his presidency. The 1828 election marked the definitive end of the one-party "Era of Good Feelings", as the Democratic-Republican Party broke apart. Jackson's supporters coalesced into the Democratic Party, while Adams's followers became known as the National Republicans. Rachel had begun experiencing significant physical stress during the election season, and she died of a heart attack on December 22, 1828, three weeks after her husband's victory in the election. Jackson felt that the accusations from Adams's supporters had hastened her death, and he never forgave Adams. "May God Almighty forgive her murderers", Jackson swore at her funeral. "I never can."
First inauguration
Jackson's first inauguration, on March 4, 1829, was the first time in which the ceremony was held on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. Due to the acrimonious campaign and mutual antipathy, Adams did not attend Jackson's inauguration. Ten thousand people arrived in town for the ceremony, eliciting this response from Francis Scott Key: "It is beautiful; it is sublime!" Jackson was the first president to invite the public to attend the White House inaugural ball. Many poor people came to the inaugural ball in their homemade clothes and rough-hewn manners. The crowd became so large that the guards could not keep them out of the White House, which became so crowded with people that dishes and decorative pieces inside were broken. Jackson's raucous populism earned him the nickname "King Mob". Though numerous political disagreements had marked Adams's presidency and would continue during his own presidency, Jackson took office at a time when no major economic or foreign policy crisis faced the United States. He announced no clear policy goals in the months before Congress convened in December 1829, save for his desire to pay down the national debt.Philosophy
Jackson's name has been associated with Jacksonian democracy or the shift and expansion of democracy as political power shifted from established elites to ordinary voters based in political parties. "The Age of Jackson" shaped the national agenda and American politics. Jackson's philosophy as president was similar to that of Thomas Jefferson, as he advocated republican values held by the Revolutionary War generation. He believed in the ability of the people to "arrive at right conclusions," and he thought that they should have the right not only to elect but also to "instruct their agents & representatives." He rejected the need for a powerful and independent Supreme Court, arguing that "the Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each or itself be guided by its own opinions of the Constitution." Jackson thought that Supreme Court justices should be made to stand for election, and believed in strict constructionism as the best way to ensure democratic rule.Administration and cabinet
Instead of choosing party leaders for his cabinet, Jackson chose "plain businessmen" whom he intended to control. For the key positions of Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury, Jackson chose two Northerners, Martin Van Buren of New York and Samuel Ingham of Pennsylvania. He appointed John Branch of North Carolina as Secretary of the Navy, John Macpherson Berrien of Georgia as Attorney General, and John Eaton of Tennessee, a friend and close political ally, as Secretary of War. Recognizing the growing importance of the Post Office, Jackson elevated the position of Postmaster General to the cabinet, and he named William T. Barry of Kentucky to lead the department. Of the six officials in Jackson's initial cabinet, only Van Buren was a major political figure in his own right. Jackson's cabinet choices were criticized from various quarters; Calhoun and Van Buren were both disappointed that their respective factions were not more prominent in the cabinet, while leaders from the state of Virginia and the region of New England complained about their exclusion. In addition to his official cabinet, Jackson would come to rely on an informal "Kitchen Cabinet" of advisers, including General William Berkeley Lewis and journalist Amos Kendall. Jackson's nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, served as the president's personal secretary, and wife, Emily, acted as the White House hostess.Jackson's inaugural cabinet suffered from bitter partisanship and gossip, especially between Eaton, Vice President John C. Calhoun, and Van Buren. By mid-1831, all except Barry had resigned. Governor Lewis Cass of the Michigan Territory became Secretary of War, ambassador and former Congressman Louis McLane of Delaware took the position of Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Edward Livingston of Louisiana became Secretary of State, and Senator Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire became Secretary of the Navy. Roger Taney, who had previously served as the Attorney General of Maryland, replaced Berrien as the U.S. Attorney General. In contrast to Jackson's initial choices, the cabinet members appointed in 1831 were prominent national leaders, none of whom were aligned with Calhoun. Outside of the cabinet, journalist Francis Preston Blair emerged as an influential adviser.
At the start of his second term, Jackson transferred McLane to the position of Secretary of State, while William J. Duane replaced McLane as Secretary of the Treasury and Livingston became the ambassador to France. Due to his opposition to Jackson's removal of federal funds from the Second Bank of the United States, Duane was dismissed from the cabinet before the end of 1833. Taney became the new Secretary of the Treasury, while Benjamin F. Butler replaced Taney as Attorney General. Jackson was forced to shake up his cabinet again in 1834 after the Senate rejected Taney's nomination and McLane resigned. John Forsyth of Georgia was appointed Secretary of State, Mahlon Dickerson replaced Woodbury as Secretary of the Navy, and Woodbury became the fourth and final Secretary of the Treasury under Jackson. Jackson dismissed Barry in 1835 after numerous complaints about the latter's effectiveness as Postmaster General, and Jackson chose Amos Kendall as Barry's replacement.