Jackson

Andrew Jackson

 * ===During JQA's Presidency===
 * Election of 1824
 * Jackson wins the popular vote and the electoral college
 * But, there are too many candidates, so Jackson does not win >50%
 * Two candidates back off and endorse Adams (one was Henry Clay)
 * JQA wins
 * Appoints Clay to Secretary of State
 * ^ The corrupt bargain
 * General Andrew Jackson takes Florida
 * Loves killing Indians more than William Henry Harrison
 * Invades Florida to kill Seminole Indians
 * Adams decides that America has jurisdiction over Floridian Indians
 * Adams-Onis Treaty
 * America gets FL
 * America has to promise not to take TX
 * === Election of 1828 ===
 * Presented himself as the representative of 'the common man'
 * Return of the two-party system
 * Parties are useful for getting more voters on your side - and actually voting
 * Organize lots of people to do a particular thing - vote
 * Mass political movements
 * Democrats follow Andrew Jackson
 * Hostility over Adams' corrupt bargain
 * Common man deserves a say
 * Not the candidate of privilege
 * Whigs are against Jackson
 * Whigs can't unite behind a single candidate
 * Clay and Webster don't have national appeal
 * They are too sectional themselves
 * The party
 * Whigs want big business
 * More aristocratic
 * Transformative moment in American politics
 * === Trend of Democratization ===
 * 1820-1840
 * States restricted voting to white, male property owners
 * Not everybody liked this
 * The trend
 * More people demanded that they should have the right to vote
 * Founding fathers favored a 'natural aristocracy' - aristocracy of merit, talent (Jefferson)


 * === The spoils system ===
 * Various political positions appointed by the President
 * Helpers in the campaign usually received these positions
 * Has been the case for a long time
 * Slightly dirty until Jackson
 * Jackson clears the appointees with well-educated common folk
 * === Caucuses and Conventions ===
 * Jackson has the idea that caucuses and primaries each send delegates to a convention which selects the party's nominee
 * Convention = official nominating mechanism
 * === The Nullification Crisis ===
 * Calhoun still hates the Tariff of Abominations
 * Calhoun is Jackson's VP, so he wants to be Pres next
 * Calhoun is trying to make SC like him to be elected President
 * Calhoun cites the VA and KY Resolutions and the 10th Amendment to say that states have the right to nullify
 * Argues that SC should just nullify the Tariff of Abominations
 * Jackson stops liking him - doesn't like his VP saying that the people should ignore him and the federal government
 * === Peggy O'Neil (Peggy Eaton) ===
 * Had an affair with John Eaton
 * Mr. O'Neil dies, Peggy marries John Eaton
 * Jackson nominates John Eaton to be Secretary of War
 * Eaton would bring Peggy to White House parties
 * The other wives won't allow Peggy into their circle
 * Jackson gets angry, because his wife died after rumors were spread
 * Jackson orders Calhoun to tell his wife to stop shunning Peggy Eaton
 * Calhoun tells his wife, she ignores him, keeps shunning Eaton
 * Jackson gets mad at Calhoun
 * === Jackson gets Congress to extend the Tariff of 1828 indefinitely ===
 * Calhoun decides to try to get the SC legislature to nullify the tariff
 * Jackson says that he is going to get an army together, invade SC, and arrest the legislature if the nullification is not repealed
 * Henry Clay says that the tariff will go down over time, passes the Force Bill to allow the President to force them to obey laws
 * SC repeals the first nullification, nullifies the Force Bill
 * Jackson supports Martin van Buren over Calhoun
 * === Ways in Which Jackson is a Jerk ===
 * Indian Removal
 * Jackson favors the removal of artificial advantage
 * The Indians are in the way
 * Jackson moves the native Americans to Oklahoma
 * Marches them to Oklahoma along the trail of tears
 * Lots of them die
 * Cherokee Nation v Georgia
 * Worcester v Georgia
 * Federal treaties supersede state treaties
 * Supreme court cases have established Native Americans as a sort-of tribe
 * Jackson ignores Marshall because Marshall can't enforce his decisions
 * The Bank War
 * Hard money / Soft money
 * Hard money
 * All money backed by gold
 * Extremely safe
 * While gold has value, money has value
 * Limited supply of money
 * Not enough money to loan out
 * Soft money
 * Money which is not backed by gold
 * Lots of money
 * Large supply
 * No need for gold
 * Not backed by anything
 * Could cause inflation
 * Might cause a collapse
 * Jackson supports hard money
 * Wants the currency to stay valuable
 * Doesn't want the expansion of New England businesses
 * Jackson also hates the bank
 * Clay, Calhoun, and Webster (and Biddle) support soft money
 * Clay
 * Wants the west to grow
 * Needs money for loans
 * Likes national improvements
 * Calhoun
 * Wants soft money so that the south can grow too
 * Webster
 * The bank keeps loaning him a lot of soft money
 * Biddle
 * Loans Webster a whole lot of free money to get him to support soft money
 * Clay gets the bank re-chartered early
 * Jackson vetoes the bank
 * Congress can't overturn the veto
 * Clay makes this the issue of the election
 * Jackson beats Clay anyway
 * Jackson kills the bank dead
 * Anti-bank jihad
 * Jackson wants to withdraw all money from the national bank
 * Fires his Secretary of Treasury (who won't withdraw the cash)
 * Hires a new one
 * Fires him after he won't withdraw the money
 * Jackson hires Roger Taney (Tawny) to withdraw the money
 * Taney doesn't withdraw the money (because that would be against the law and crash the economy)
 * Taney instead leaves the money in the bank
 * Taney deposits new money into smaller state banks
 * Taney then tries to withdraw funds from the national bank
 * Biddle fights back
 * Biddle is going to recall loans and hurt the economy
 * Loans to banks and businesses
 * Biddle will raise interest rates, further injuring the economy
 * Tries to make people mad at Jackson with a mini-recession
 * Biddle pulls a Clay and backs out
 * Jackson wins
 * No more bank
 * Panic of 1837
 * Causes spotty growth for the next 100 years
 * Jackson now tries to take the Supreme Court over
 * Marshall dies
 * Roger Taney is appointed as Chief Justice
 * Taney will do whatever Jackson asks
 * Taney is responsible for very bad decisions
 * Charles River Bridge v Warren Bridge
 * Massachusetts gave two people exclusive right over bridges over the river
 * Taney rules in favor of the new bridge; states can invalidate contracts at any time
 * Dred Scott (1857, when Jackson was no longer in office [Buchanan was])
 * Slave who was taken by his master from Missouri into Illinois
 * Master dies, Scott sues his master's wife who inherits Scott
 * Illinois court agrees with him
 * Appealed to the Supreme Court
 * Taney rules that Scott is only property and therefore cannot sue
 * Taney further rules that people can bring their slaves wherever they so wish