Big Question: How did change American politics?

1) Why did Jackson “kill” the bank of the United States and what was the impact of his actions?

The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816 and was not supposed to be renewed until 1836. However, Henry Clay tried to re-charter it four years early during his 1832 presidential campaign versus Andrew Jackson. He figured if Jackson vetoed it he would alienate the Northeast, but if he signed it he would alienate the West. Jackson vetoed the Bank Bill.

Andrew Jackson, Bank Veto 1832 (Document A) “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.”

Clay’s plan backfired and Jackson won the election of 1832 by a wide margin. He took his victory as a mandate from the people to destroy the bank. He “killed” the National Bank by removing all federal funds and placing them in “pet banks.” This combined with rampant speculation in western lands ended up destabilizing the banking system so much so that in 1836, Jackson ordered that western land could only be paid for in gold or silver. The collapse of a standardized national banking system was one of the causes of the Panic of 1837 (major economic recession).

2) Why did nullify the Tariff of 1832 and how did Jackson and Congress resolve the conflict?

In the 1790s, Jefferson and Madison proposed that states could “nullify” or cancel laws. In 1828, Congress passed the “” which significantly increased tariff rates. South Carolina responded by declaring the law unconstitutional (they didn’t actually nullify it).

Representative George McDuffie of South Carolina (1828) (Document B) “I speak not the language of the demagogue, but the grave and solemn language of historical and philosophical truth, when I say that it is the very genius of this system, as exhibited in this and every other country, to tax the many and the poor for the benefit of the few and the wealthy. Salt, for example; the people of the United States now pay about 100 percent on every bushel of salt they consume, amounting in the aggregate to a tax of least a million and a half dollars, paid by all classes, for the exclusive benefit of the owners of one or two hundred salt works at most. The same remark is strictly applicable to the duty on iron.”

In 1832 Congress passed a new tariff that only slightly reduced the rates.

South Carolina Special Convention (1832) (Document C) “We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress [Tariff of 1832] …are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by said acts, and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void.”

President Jackson was a supporter of states’ rights unless it threatened the Union. Publically he denounced nullification, while privately he fumed and was ready to invade South Carolina.

President Jackson: Private Letter Regarding Nullification (1832) (Document D) “The vain threats of resistance by those who have raised the standard of rebellion show their madness and folly. You may assure those patriots who cling to their country, and this union, which alone secures our liberty, prosperity, and happiness, that in forty days, I can have within the limits of South Carolina fifty thousand men, and in forty days more another fifty thousand. The wickedness, madness and folly of the leaders and the delusion of their follower in the attempt to destroy the union has not its parallel in the history of the world. The Union will be preserved.”

Jackson’s stern words startled South Carolina. Congress passed the Force Act which gave the president the authority to use the military to enforce the tariff. Without any support from other states, South Carolina eventually agreed to a compromise tariff worked out by Henry Clay. The Compromise Tariff of 1833 would gradually reduce the tariff rates over the next ten years. At the same time South Carolina nullified the Force Act.

3) How and why did Jackson remove Native Americans from the West?

By the late 1820s, the land east of the Mississippi River was filling up quickly with white settlers and Native Americans continued to be moved aside. In response to pressure to permanently move the Native Americans beyond the Mississippi River, Congress debated the Indian Removal Act. Jackson weighed in on the debate.

President Jackson (1829) (Document E) “Our conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants to preserve for a while their once terrible names. Surrounded by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the states does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity.

As a means of effecting this end, I suggest for your consideration the proprietary of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi… to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for their use. This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be cruel and unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek a home in a distant land.”

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act which forced the resettlement of Native American tribes west of the Mississippi River. Various states passed similar laws requiring Native American to move west. Georgia passed a law requiring the Cherokees to move west. The Cherokees challenged Georgia in court.

 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) – Cherokees are a foreign nation and may not sue in federal court

 Worcester v. Georgia (1832) – Cherokees are a foreign nation and state laws do not apply; Georgia cannot move the Cherokees

President Jackson was said to have remarked “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Cherokees continued to resist re-settlement and in 1838 (after Jackson left office), the US Army forced 15,000 Cherokees to leave Georgia. The difficulties on the “Trail of Tears” were so great that upwards of 4,000 Cherokees died on the trip.

(Document F)

Andrew Jackson was a Slaver, Ethnic Cleanser, and Tyrant. He Deserves No Place on Our Money. By Dylan Matthews, Vox.com, April 20, 2016

On Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced that a portrait of Harriet Tubman will grace future $20 bills starting in 2030. It's a fitting, and long overdue tribute to a genuine hero of American history who helped end the gravest evil this nation ever perpetrated.

But the department also announced that the man currently on the bill — perhaps America's worst president and the only one guilty of perpetrating a mass act of ethnic cleansing — will still be on there: Andrew Jackson. This is unacceptable. Jackson was a disaster of a human being on every possible level, and should not be commemorated positively by any branch of American government. And as a slave owner, putting him on the other side of Tubman's bill is particularly disgraceful.

After generations of pro-Jackson historians left out Jackson's role in American Indian removal — the forced, bloody transfer of tens of thousands of Native Americans from the South — a recent reevaluation has rightfully put that crime at the core of his legacy.

But Jackson is even worse than his horrifyingly brutal record with regard to Native Americans indicates. Indian removal was not just a crime against humanity, it was a crime against humanity intended to abet another crime against humanity: By clearing the Cherokee from the American South, Jackson hoped to open up more land for cultivation by slave plantations. He owned hundreds of slaves, and in 1835 worked with his postmaster general to censor anti-slavery mailings from northern abolitionists. The historian Daniel Walker Howe writes that Jackson, "expressed his loathing for the abolitionists vehemently, both in public and in private."

Jackson's small-government fetishism and crank monetary policy views stunted the attempts of better leaders like to invest in American infrastructure, and led to the Panic of 1837, a financial crisis that touched off a recession lasting seven years. If that weren't enough, he was a war criminal who suspended habeas corpus and executed prisoners for minor infractions during his time as a general in the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson deserves a museum chronicling his crimes and dedicated to his victims, not commemoration on American currency.