Download • Explain the role of the House of Representatives in the election of

President John Quincy Adams (1767–1848)
William H Crawford 1772 - 1834
Henry Clay (1777 – 1852)
Andrew Jackson 1767 - 1845
• Explain the role of the House of Representatives in the
election of 1824.
• Describe how the 1824 election heightened Jackson’s
populism and increased sectional tension.
• Identify the reasons that the presidency proved difficult for
Adams to manage successfully.
•How do these images of Adams and Jackson represent their different temperaments and
abilities as chief executives.
•How does the image of Jackson embody a new type of American politics?
The pro-Jackson ad on the left alludes to Jackson’s defeat by the “Corrupt Bargain” of 1824. The two
wars mentioned in the ad are the War of 1812 [during which he won the Battle of New Orleans] and the
Seminole War of 1819 in Florida. The pro-Adams ad on the left, shaped like a coffin, tells the story of a
soldier executed during the Creek War [part of the War of 1812].
Video: The Life of Andrew Jackson—The History Channel—2007
• How did the election of 1828 affect Jackson’s personal life?
• Why was Jackson’s ‘southern aristocratic’ background overlooked during the election?
• Describe the historical
importance of the role
of the ‘everyday citizen’
during the 1828
election.
• Identify the possible
dangers of Jackson’s
popular support, both
domestically and
internationally.
Topic: Chapter 13: The Rise of a Mass Democracy (1824 – 1840)
Aim: Explain why Andrew Jackson’s presidency heralded a new type of American politics.
Andrew Jackson’s Inauguration Party
• How did western
migration to the new
states of the South and
Old Northwest lend
itself to a more roughand-tumble political
environment than that
of earlier elections?
• How did Jackson
work to maintain
public and political
support for his
presidency after 1828?
Margaret Bayard Smith observed the presidential party with shock, stating “Ladies fainted, men
were seen with bloody noses, and such a scene of confusion took place as is impossible to
describe — those who got in could not get out by the door again but had to scramble out the
windows…. The President [was] … almost … torn to pieces by the people in their eagerness to
shake hands with Old Hickory…. It was the people's day,… and the people would rule!”
Topic: Chapter 13: The Rise of a Mass
Democracy (1824 – 1840)
Aim:
• Explain how the “spoils system”
established political machines, but
increased distrust of the federal
government.
• Analyze how tariffs revealed deepening
sectional differences.
• Jackson backers promised positions of political
support during election
• Jackson removed 919 officials from
government positions, nearly 10% of the
postings
• post office as the largest department in the
federal government was hit hardest—in one year
423 postmasters were deprived of their positions
• Jackson administration attempted to explain
the purge as reform, but criteria for change
actually loyalty to Andrew Jackson
• new emphasis on loyalty rather than
competence would have a long term negative
effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of the
federal government
Ongoing Issues with the Spoils System
1. Presidents after President Andrew Jackson continued the use of the spoils system to encourage
others to vote for them. But by the late 1860s, reformers began demanding a civil service system.
Running under the Liberal Republican Party in 1872, they were harshly defeated by patronagehungry Ulysses S. Grant.
2. After the assassination of James Garfield by a rejected office-seeker in 1881, the calls for civil
service reform intensified. The end of the spoils system at the federal level came with the passage of
the Pendelton Act in 1883, which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job
candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs were covered under the law initially, the law
allowed the President to transfer jobs and their current holders into the system, thus giving the
holder a permanent job.
3. The Pendleton Act's reach was expanded as the two main political parties alternated control of the
White House every election between 1884 and 1896. After each election the outgoing President
applied the Pendleton Act to jobs held by his political supporters. By 1900, most federal jobs were
handled through civil service and the spoils system was limited only to very senior positions.
4. The separation between the political activity and the civil service was made stronger with the Hatch
Act of 1939 which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many political activities.
5. The spoils system survived much longer in many states, counties and municipalities, such as the
Tammany Hall ring, which survived well into the 1930s when New York City reformed its own civil
service. Illinois modernized its bureaucracy in 1917 under Frank Lowden, but Chicago held on to
patronage in city government until the city agreed to end the practice in the Shakman Decrees of
1972 and 1983. Modern variations on the spoils system are often described as a “political machine.”
South Carolina’s Response to the Tariffs
•Protectionist tariff in the United States
•passed as a reduced tariff to remedy the conflict created by the tariff of 1828
•still deemed unsatisfactory by southerners and other groups hurt by high tariff rates. Southern
opposition to this tariff and its predecessor, the Tariff of Abominations caused the Nullification Crisis
involving South Carolina
•tariff was later lowered down to 35 percent, a reduction of 10 percent, to pacify these objections.
Alexis de Toqueville
•
•
•
•
Southerners sold their cotton and other products without tariffs, while the products
that they bought were heavily tariffed.
Tariffs led the U.S. to buy less British products and vice versa, but it did help the
Northeast prosper so that it could be more of the South’s products.
John C. Calhoun secretly wrote “The South Carolina Exposition” in 1828, boldly
denouncing the recent tariff and calling for nullification of the tariff by all states.
However, South Carolina was alone in this nullification threat, since Andrew Jackson
had been elected two
Bank of United States
Jackson and his followers distrusted monopolistic banking and oversized
businesses as a threat to state power—Bank of the United States
(BUS).
In 1832, Henry Clay, pushed for the rechartering of the BUS four years early
in an attempt to lose the support of the manufacturers of the East or
alienate his followers—but West held more power
The recharter bill passed through Congress easily, but Jackson demolished in
a scorching veto that condemned the BUS as unconstitutional (despite
political foe John Marshall’s ruling that it was okay), and antiAmerican.
The veto amplified the power of the president by ignoring the Supreme Court
and aligned the West against the East.
Brickbats and Bouquets for the Bank
Topic: Jackson and the Trail of Tears
Aim: To what extent was President Andrew Jackson directly responsible for
the Trail of Tears?
What does this image of Chief John Ross
from the late 1800s tell you about
connections between American and
Cherokee culture?
Cherokee Clans Taken from a manuscript
prepared by J.P. Evans in 1835: "There are
no natural boundaries to their clans; the
subjects of different clans being mingled.
Those of the same clan are considered as
belonging to the same family. In fact this
relationship seems to be as binding as the ties
of consanguinity. An Indian can tell you
without hesitating what degree of relationship
exists between himself and any other
individual of the same clan you may see
proper to point out. A man and woman of the
same clan are not allowed to become man and
wife. This appearance of ancient custom is
yet prevalent to some extent, and the
disregard of it disgusting in the eyes of
many."
The Cherokee nation
interacted with the
United States as a
sovereign nation, with
its own capital, New
Echota, a constitution
and a Cherokee
Supreme Court.
problem:
1. white resentment of
the Cherokee had been
building and reached a
pinnacle following the
discovery of gold in
northern Georgia.
2. the U.S. government
ultimately decided it
was time for the
Cherokees to be
"removed"; leaving
behind their farms,
their land and their
homes.
The Trail of Tears
Worcester vs. Georgia, 1832 and Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia –The U.S. Supreme Court
ruled for Georgia in the 1831 case, but in Worcester vs. Georgia, the court affirmed Cherokee
sovereignty. President Andrew Jackson defied the decision of the Supreme Court.
1. The U.S. government used the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 to justify the removal. The
treaty, signed by about 100 Cherokees known as the Treaty Party, relinquished all lands east
of the Mississippi River in exchange for land in Indian Territory and the promise of money,
livestock, various provisions, tools and other benefits.
2. The Cherokee were rounded up in the summer of 1838 and loaded onto boats that
traveled the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers into Indian Territory. An
estimated 4,000 died from hunger, exposure and disease.
http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/indians/cherok
ee/trail_of_tears.html
http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/
History/TrailOfTears/Default.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Land_
Lotteries