Old Hickory -"by the Eternal! I’ll Smash Them!"

Old Hickory – “By the Eternal! I'll smash them!"

Andrew Jackson was a wealthy landowner, slaveholder, attorney, businessman and general. Jackson had humble origins, and was thought by some to have been a crude individual. He certainly had a volatile personality (in a famous incident in the White House, he apparently lost his temper and fumed at some unwelcome guests, who fled in horror. When they had gone, he turned to an assistant, grinned and said, "They thought I was mad, didn't they?"). Jackson saw himself as “President of All the People”, defender of the "Common Man", and willingly used his authority on their behalf. He vetoed more bills than all his predecessors combined; challenging the view that the only grounds for a presidential veto were a bill's constitutionality.

The “Jacksonian era” saw the emergence of a solid two-party system. The modern Democratic Party was founded under Jackson, and an opposition party - the Whigs - soon evolved. When the Whigs disappeared in the early 1850s, the party was replaced by the Republican Party, giving the U.S. the basic political structure that survives to this day. The Jackson-led democrats portrayed themselves as saviors of the common people; yet ironically Jackson-led democrats shunned minorities and only assisted white men. Women received little betterment. Jackson supported public participation in government affairs, thus endorsing the "Spoils System” which led to the expansion of democracy and rise of political interest in the common man. Proclaiming that no person should regard office-holding as a right; Jackson declared, “All intelligent citizens are equally qualified to serve,” and announced his intention to protect the nation from a permanent, aristocratic, office-holding clique by removing long-term officeholders (however, only a minority of federal officials - estimated at no more than ten percent - were actually removed by Jackson).

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President Jackson gained ideas from the “Kitchen Cabinet” (composed of his close friends, and was more often a factor in decisions than the Presidential Cabinet). A notable example is Jackson’s decision in the nullification controversy that arose during his presidency. Former President John Q. Adams had signed a bill increasing the tariffs on imported and exported goods. The adolescent industries were no longer infants; they needed increased protection from foreign competition; thus demanding higher tariffs. Essentially, the South had to pay more for their imported, manufactured goods from New England. Jackson, a native Southerner, knew of the South’s best interests; however, Jackson’s decisions affected the whole country, so his decision also must embody the Northerner’s interests as well. In response, Jackson proposed that the revenue gained from this tariff would be distributed to the North and South evenly.

Without Andrew Jackson, it is very likely that the United States may have remained in a speculative economy (economy where paper money has no set values and fluctuates with the international market) for quite some time. If this happened,