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Submitted by dystic on May 12, 2008
Category: American History
Words: 724 | Pages: 3
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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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