FREE ESSAY ON ANDREW JACKSON

ANDREW JACKSON

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, in a settlement on the border of North and
South Carolina. He was orphaned at age 14. After studying law and becoming a member of
the Bar in North Carolina later he moved to Nashville Tennessee. Their he became a member
of a powerful political faction led by William Blount. He was married in 1791 to Rachel
Donelson Robards, and later remarried to him due to a legal mistake in her prior divorce
in 1794.
Jackson served as delegate to Tenn. in the 1796 Constitutional convention and a
congressman for a year (from 1796-97). He was elected senator in 1797, but financial
problems forced him to resign and return to Tennessee in less than a year. Later he
served as a Tennessee superior court judge for six years starting in 1798. In 1804 he
retired from the bench and moved to Nashville and devoted time to business ventures and
his plantation. At this time his political career looked over.
In 1814 Jackson was a Major General in the Tennessee Militia, here he was ordered to
march against the Creek Indians (who were pro-British in the war of 1812). His goal was
achieved at Horseshoe Bend in March of 1814. Eventually he forced All Indians from the
area. His victory's impressed some people in Washington and Jackson was put in command of
the defense of New Orleans. This show of American strength made Americans feel proud
after a war filled with military defeats. Jackson was given the nickname Old Hickory, and
was treated as a national hero. In 1817 he was ordered against the Seminole Indians. He
pushed them back into Spanish Florida and executed two British subjects. Jackson instead
that his actions were with approval of the Monroe administration. His actions helped to
acquire the Florida territory, and he became a provisional governor of Florida that same
year.
In 1822 the Tennessee Legislature nominated him for president and the following year he
was elected the U.S. senate. He also nearly won the presidential campaign of 1824 however
as a result of the corrupt bargain with Henry Clay. Over the next four years the current
administration built a strong political machine with nationalistic policies and a lack of
concern of states rights. In 1828 through a campaign filled with mud slinging on both
sides, Andrew Jackson became the seventh President to the United States.
Instead of the normal cabinet made up by the president, he relied more on an informal
group of newspaper writers and northern politicians who had worked for his election. I
believe that this made him more in contact with the people of the United States, more in
contact with the public opinion and feelings toward national issues.
President Jackson developed the system of rotation in office. This was used to protect
the American people from a development of a long-standing political group by removing
long-term office holders. His enemies accused him of corruption of civil service for
political reasons. However, I think that it was used to insure loyalty of the people in
his administration.
States rights played an important part in Jackson's policy's as president. In the case of
the Cherokee Indians vs. The State of Georgia, two Supreme Court decisions in 1831 and
1832 upholding the rights of the Cherokee nation over the State of Georgia who had wanted
to destroy Cherokee jurisdiction on it's land because gold had been found on it, and the
state seeing the Indians as tenants on state land decided to kick them out. Chief Justice
John Marshall ruled that Georgia had no jurisdiction to interfere with the rights of the
Cherokee and removal of them would violate treaties between them and the U.S. Government.
However, Jackson, not liking these decisions was reported of saying John Marshall has
made his decision, now let him enforce it. It seems to me like a slap in Justice
Marshall's face, that Jackson was and always will be an Indian fighter. I think he just
liked pushing around the Indians because he new that whatever resistance they had was no
match for the U.S. army. To emphasize his point, in 1838 (one year after Jackson left
office), a unite of federal troops rounded up the 15,000 Cherokee who resisted relocation
and remained in Georgia and during the cold and rain of winter forced them to march to
their lands in the west, this was known as the Trail of Tears since about 25% of the
people died in route of either disease, starvation, and exposure to the cold. Even though
Jackson wasn't in office at the time and is not a part of his presidency, his effluence
still existed through his predecessor, Martin Van Burin.
The question of the tariff was a major controversy in the United States around the years
of his Presidency and his strong support for a unified nation oven states rights would
hold the country together in this national crisis. Jackson had promised the south a
reduction in duties to levels established in 1828, which were acceptable to southerners
as opposed to the higher rates since then. In 1832 his administration only sliced away a
little bit of the duties, not close to what the south expected he would do. In
retaliation of this insulting lack of concern of the South's voice in government, South
Carolina acting on the doctrine of Nullification which stated that the union was made up
of the states and that the states had the right to null or void a law if they didn't
agree with it, declared the federal tariff laws of 1828 and 1832 invalid and prohibited
collection of tariff's after February first of 1833. Jackson's response to this came on
his Nullification Proclamation on December 10, 1832. He declared his intent to enforce
the law and was willing to seek and agreement in a lowering of tariff's. In 1833 congress
passed a compromise bill which set a new tariff, when the other southern states accepted
the new tariff the threat of S. Carolina breaking away form the union was brought to a
happy end.
The Second Bank of the United States was not made into an issue of his election in 1828
by Jackson. However he decided the bank, which is not a government bank, but chartered by
it in 1826, had failed to provide a stable currency, and had favored the Northern states,
and few loans were granted to run. When you gave this project, I though Jackson was a
mean tempered Indian fighter who found his way to office because he took over Florida and
defended New Orleans Successfully. But I grew to learn that he was really a great
president and did a lot for the presidency of the United States of America.
Bibliography
http://members.tripod.com/~ced0r/jackson
http://www.comptons.com