Overview Due to a quirk in time, you have been transported back to the year 1837 in Washington, D.C. Here, you find yourself involved in a historical event that never happened—the impeachment trial of . Jackson has been brought up on the following specific charges:

Count 1: Committing crimes against Native Americans and creating a climate hostile to their existence. Count 2: Willful disregard of treaties and laws passed by the United States government. Count 3: Denial of the constitutional powers granted to the legislature, states, and Supreme Court.

Roles in the Simulation

Prosecution Defense Neutral Prosecuting Attorney (Opening/Closing) – Defense Attorney (Opening/Closing) – Congressman – Isabel Kartik Lucy Prosecuting Attorney – Defense Attorney – Congressman – Jay Ali Rohan Prosecuting Attorney – Defense Attorney – Congressman – Brit Jeremy Alec Prosecuting Attorney – Defense Attorney – Congressman – Priyaj Kayla Andrew Prosecuting Attorney – Defense Attorney – Congressman – Erin Felipe Lauren Cherokee Indian – Common Man- Reporter – Arjun Sneha Aishwarya John Marshall – Peggy Eaton – Reporter – Anahita Anwen Ariel Nicholas Biddle – – Reporter – Conner Skyeler Mia John C. Calhoun – Andrew Jackson – Artist – Will Tony Taylor Artist – Owen

Andrew Jackson 1. Is the defendant in the impeachment trial 2. Will testify in his defense before Congress 3. Must be able to answer questions consistently with Jackson’s political views and be familiar with specific aspects of his life.

Prosecution Team 1. The prosecution shall consist of five attorneys. 2. The prosecution will prepare to prove that Andrew Jackson is guilty under each of the three counts of the indictment listed above. 3. One attorney will prepare a two minute speech introducing the case against Jackson and a two minute closing. 4. All other attorneys will question witnesses, one for the prosecution and one for the defense. The prosecution may ask five questions of Jackson and three questions of all other witnesses. 5. Attorneys will help witnesses complete the affidavits and compose questions. The affidavit is a one page, typed witness statement. The witness should state his/her connection to Andrew Jackson and his presidency.

Defense Team 1. The defense team shall consist of five attorneys 2. The defense will prepare to prove that Andrew Jackson is not guilty under each of the three counts of the indictment listed above. 3. One attorney will prepare a two minute speech introducing the case for Jackson and a two minute closing. 4. All other attorneys will question witnesses, one for the prosecution and one for the defense. The defense may ask five questions of Jackson and three questions of all other witnesses. 5. Both attorneys will questions witnesses. The defense may ask six questions of Jackson and four questions of all other witnesses. 6. Attorneys will help witnesses complete the affidavits and compose questions. The affidavit is a one page, typed witness statement. The witness should state his/her connection to Andrew Jackson and his presidency.

Witnesses 1. In addition to Jackson’s testimony there will be other witnesses available for questioning; they will be witnesses for the prosecution and for the defense. 2. The prosecution witnesses will be a Cherokee Indian, John Marshall, Nicholas Biddle, and John C. Calhoun. 3. The defense witnesses will be Andrew Jackson, a common man, Peggy Eaton, and Martin Van Buren. 4. Each witness must be familiar with the issues that would have concerned their character and be familiar with the general ideas and issues of Andrew Jackson’s presidency. Each witness will be questioned by members of both the prosecution and the defense. 5. Witnesses are also responsible for working with the attorneys to compose questions and for filling out the affidavit.

Congressman 1. The Congressmen sits in judgment of Jackson 2. The Congressmen complete the Statement of Stipulated Facts. These are the facts of Jackson’s presidency that everyone agrees to be correct. The statement of stipulated facts should cover the actions of each of the listed witnesses and should be 2 typed pages in length. 3. The Congressmen will a. preside over the trial b. evaluate and rule on the admissibility of evidence and arguments. c. maintain order and decorum in the court. d. reach verdict and impose sentence 4. The Congressmen will write up their final verdict and prepare a speech explaining the ruling.

Reporters 1. Will write an article about the basics of the trial and the counts being brought against Andrew Jackson. 2. Will observe and report on pretrial, trial, and post-trial events. 3. Will observe and listen to conversations between witnesses and their lawyers in order to speculate and report on tactics and strategy from each side. 4. Will create and distribute a record of the trial (cartoons, editorials, articles)

Artist 1. Courtroom sketch artist will create a visual record of events from the trial with captions explaining relevant historical information. 2. Create 3 political cartoons focused on Andrew Jackson’s presidency. You must use the listed witnesses as the subject of the cartoon.

TRIAL TIPS: 1. Do not answer a question until it is absolutely clear what is being asked. You might want to say, “Can you tell me what you mean by…?” 2. Do not give more information in your answer than what is being asked.

TRIAL PROCEDURES 1. Chief Justice reads charges against Andrew Jackson 2. Opening statement from prosecution (2 minutes) 3. Opening statement from defense (2 minutes) 4. Testimony of prosecution witnesses 5. Testimony of defense witnesses 6. Closing statement for prosecution (2 minutes) 7. Closing statement for defense (2 minutes) 8. Congressmen deliberate and reach verdict and sentence.

Andrew Jackson Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about Andrew Jackson’s life, actions as president, and political view.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions your Defense Attorney will ask you and your answers.

Prosecuting Attorney (Opening and Closing) Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about Andrew Jackson’s life, actions as president, and political view.

In the space below, write notes that you received from the Prosecution that you will want to include in your Opening or Closing Statements.

In the space below write the Opening Statement you will read at the beginning of the trial.

In the space below write the Closing Statement you will read at the end of the trial.

Defense Attorney (Opening and Closing) Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about Andrew Jackson’s life, actions as president, and political view.

In the space below, write notes that you received from the Defense that you will want to include in your Opening or Closing Statements.

In the space below write the Opening Statement you will read at the beginning of the trial.

In the space below write the Closing Statement you will read at the end of the trial.

Prosecuting Attorney Trial Preparation

Assigned Witness for the Prosecution: Assigned Witness for the Defense:

In the space below provide information about Andrew Jackson’s life, actions as president, and political view, relating to your assigned witnesses.

In the space below write three questions you will ask the witness for the Prosecution and their answers:

In the space below write three questions you will ask the witness for the Defense:

Defense Attorney Trial Preparation

Assigned Witness for the Defense: Assigned Witness for the Prosecution:

In the space below provide information about Andrew Jackson’s life, actions as president, and political view, relating to your assigned witnesses.

In the space below write three questions you will ask the witness for the Defense and their answers:

In the space below write three questions you will ask the witness for the Prosecution:

Cherokee Indian Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the prosecution will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the defense will ask you. John Marshall Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the prosecution will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the defense will ask you. Nicholas Biddle Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the prosecution will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the defense will ask you. John C. Calhoun Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the prosecution will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the defense will ask you. A Common Man Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the defense will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the prosecution will ask you.

Peggy Eaton Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the defense will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the prosecution will ask you.

Martin Van Buren Trial Preparation

In the space below provide information about your life related to Andrew Jackson and the counts that are being brought against him.

In the space below write the affidavit you will read during the trial. (A written sworn statement of fact voluntarily made by a person under oath.)

In the space below write the questions the defense will ask you and your answers.

In the space below predict the questions the prosecution will ask you.

Congressman Trial Preparation

In the space below write a Statement of Stipulated Facts about Andrew Jackson and his presidency that everyone agrees to be correct. This statement should cover the actions of each of the witnesses listed and should be two typed pages in length.

Reporter Trial Preparation

In the space below write down your notes and observations from the witnesses. Listen to the questions the attorneys will ask and their courtroom strategy.

In the space below write down your notes about Andrew Jackson and the counts being brought against him.

Artist Trial Preparation

In the space below, write the topics of the three political cartoons you will draw (picking from the list of witnesses). Each cartoon must be based on Andrew Jackson’s presidency.

Notes on Witnesses

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson ran for election in 1824 and won the popular vote. He was popular because of his military victories over the British in the Battle of New Orleans and over the Creek and Seminole Indians. Jackson received 153,544 votes and basically won all of the country but New England, but he did not receive the majority in the Electoral College. So the vote went to the House of Representatives between the top three candidates (eliminating the fourth candidate Henry Clay, speaker of the House). Clay gave his support to John Quincy Adams, and he was elected. This was deemed the “Corrupt Bargain.”

Prior to the election of 1828, Jackson’s followers organized behind individual liberty, states’ rights, and limited government. Campaign slogans like, “Vote for Andrew Jackson, who can fight, not John Quincy Adams, who can write.”

He was condemned as a murderer for having executed army deserters and killing men in duels. They questioned the morality of his wife, Rachel, because she had married Jackson before her divorce from her first husband was final. Jackson always believed his opponents’ slanders had contributed to his wife’s death shortly after the election.

Andrew Jackson was a man of contradictions, he had little formal education (but could speak eloquently), self-proclaimed champion of the common man, vision of democracy excluded any role for Indians, African Americans should remain as slaves or be freed and sent abroad, raised with modest means, became one of the richest men in , suspicion of banks/money, strong nationalist.

Common Man Jackson was known as “Old Hickory” during the election of 1828. The first six presidents were of the same mold, educated, wealthy, from the east. Jackson was a self-made man who declared education an unnecessary requirement for political leadership. Jackson launched a new era in politics in which politicians desperately tried to show how poor they had been.

Jackson’s inauguration seemed the embodiment of “mob rule” by uneducated ruffians. He rode to the White House followed by a swarm of men who had muddy boots, smashed glasses, and were chaotic. Jackson’s critics were quick to point out that the party at the beginning of the “reign of King Mob.”

“No one who was at Washington at the time of General Jackson's inauguration is likely to forget that period to the day of his death. To us, who had witnessed the quiet and orderly period of the Adams administration, it seemed as if half the nation had rushed at once into the capital. It was like the inundation of the northern barbarians into Rome, save that the tumultuous tide came in from a different point of the compass. The West and the South seemed to have precipitated themselves upon the North and overwhelmed it. On that memorable occasion you might tell a 'Jackson man' almost as far as you could see him. Their every motion seemed to cry out 'Victory!'” – Arthur J. Stansbury, Jacksonian contemporary

Jackson was a military hero, a frontiersman, a populist. He enchanted the common people.

Peggy Eaton Peggy Eaton was the wife of Jackson’s secretary of war. John C. Calhoun’s wife Floride and others from Washington society ostracized Peggy Eaton because she was the daughter of a Washington tavern keeper and allegedly, a woman of “easy virtue.” Van Buren, a widower, stood by her, as did Jackson, who identified with the criticism toward Peggy b/c of his own wife.

Peggy’s first husband, John B. Timberlake, a purser in the US Navy was in debt for years. They had three children, and married when she was 17 and he was 39. Timberlake was friends with Senator John Henry Eaton since 1818 and told Eaton all about his financial problems. Timberlake died of pulmonary disease in 1828, although there were allegations that he committed suicide. Shortly after Timberlake’s death, Eaton and Peggy married. It would have been more proper to have a longer mourning period, but there actions were blown up by women of Washington. ()

Jackson was sympathetic to the Eaton’s because of the allegations directed at his wife who was married when she married Jackson. He also blamed the rumors on causing her heart attack and subsequent death on December 22, 1828.

Jackson appointed Eaton as his Secretary of War, hoping to limit the rumors, but the scandal intensified. Jackson felt his political opponents (especially Calhoun) were feeding the controversy. The controversy resulted in the resignation of almost all of his Cabinet members during the spring of 1831.

Martin Van Buren Senator in New York who oversaw the task of getting Jackson elected in 1828. Van Buren represented a new political era (not son of a President or a man of strong accomplishments).

By 1828, Van Buren established the Democratic Political Party. Martin became Jackson’s closest adviser.

Cherokee Indian In 1823, the Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. M’Intosh, that the Indians were not owners of the land, but merely had a “right to occupancy.” John Marshall claimed that from the colonial era, Indians had lived as hunters and not farmers. The decision struck down a pervious blow against Indian efforts to retain their lands. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), Marshall described Indians as “wards” of the federal government. They deserved paternal regard and protection, but they lacked the standing as citizens to receive rights. In 1832, Worcester v. Georgia, the Court held that Indians were a distinct people with the right to maintain a different political identity. They must be dealt with by the federal government and not the states. And Georgia’s actions violated the Cherokee’s treaties with Washington. But despite his strong assertion of national supremacy in the nullification crisis, Jackson refused to recognize the ruling in Worchester v. Georgia and said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Federal soldiers forcibly removed Cherokee from their location during the presidency of Martin Van Buren.

John Marshall In 1832, Worcester v. Georgia, the Court held that Indians were a distinct people with the right to maintain a different political identity. They must be dealt with by the federal government and not the states. And Georgia’s actions violated the Cherokee’s treaties with Washington. But despite his strong assertion of national supremacy in the nullification crisis, Jackson refused to recognize the ruling in Worchester v. Georgia and said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Federal soldiers forcibly removed Cherokee from their location during the presidency of Martin Van Buren.

Nicholas Biddle Andrew Jackson waged a war on the Bank of the United States. The Bank symbolized the hopes and fears inspired by the market revolution and its expansion helped to finance the nation’s economic development. But many Americans, including Jackson, distrusted bankers as “nonproducers” who contributed nothing to the nation’s wealth, but profited from others. The tendency of banks to over issue paper money, whose deterioration in value reduced the real income of wage earners, reinforced this conviction.

Jackson long believed that “hard money” (gold/silver) was the only honest currency.

Heading the Bank was Nicholas Biddle, of PA. During the 1820s, he had effectively used the bank’s power to curb the over issuing of money by local banks and create a stable currency.

Biddle was snobbish and aristocratic. He was as strong willed as Jackson and unwilling to back down in a fight. In 1832, he told a congressional committee that his Bank had the ability to “destroy” any state bank. He hastened to add that he never “injured” any of them. But Democrats wondered whether any institution ought to possess such power.

Many called it the Monster Bank, an illegitimate union of political authority and entrenched economic privilege. The issue of the Bank’s future came to a head in 1832. Although the charter didn’t expire until 1836, Biddle’s allies persuaded Congress to approve a bill extending the Bank for another 20 years. Jackson saw the tactic as a form of blackmail (if he didn’t sign the bill, the bank would use it as a resource to oppose his reelection). “The Bank,” he told Van Buren, “is trying to destroy me, but I will kill it.”

Jackson: “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.” Exclusive privileges like the bank’s charter widened the gap between wealthy and humble members of society.

He was the first president to use his veto power as a major weapon and to appeal directly to the public for political support over the head of Congress.

Two very different groups approved of Jackson’s veto, State banks and hard money advocates. Pet banks were created.

Panic of 1837

John C. Calhoun Leading theorist on nullification. The South began to fall behind the rest of the country in population, Calhoun defended southern sectionalism. He was elected vice president in 1828. Drafted the Exposition and Protest in South Carolina which justified nullification. The document drew on the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1789. Calhoun insisted that the national government had been created by an agreement among sovereign states, each of which retained the right to prevent the enforcement within its borders of acts of Congress that exceeded the powers given to the federal government in the Constitution.

Nullification wasn’t just a sectional issue, South Carolina stood alone. Nullification amounted to nothing less than disunion according to Jackson, although Calhoun would argue it wasn’t about disunion.

A tariff was passed in 1832, and South Carolina declared the tax on imported goods null and void. In response to this declaration, Jackson persuaded Congress to enact a Force Bill authorizing him to use the army and navy to collect custom duties.

In 1833, Clay engineered the passage of another tariff which further reduced the duties and South Carolina rescinded on their previous ordinance of nullification.