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Evaluation of a President Within the conceptual framework of this research we will evaluate President Andrew Jackson. There are certain areas of his presidency that will be evaluated: symbol of the country, chief party leader, his policy, the economy under his presidency, and global leader. In order to assess Jacksons performance in the aforementioned areas, we will first analyze Jackson and his presidency, to be followed by his evaluation. For the evaluation, the regular grade scale (A, B, C, D or F) would be used.
The election of the seventh president during 1829 was considered to be the first modern election of our time. It was the first election where the personalities took center stage for each of the candidate and their issues. During this election Andrew Jackson was running against a man named John Adams and it was apparent that these men were not very fond of each other. Despite all that was said during this time period, Jackson was a great public speaker and captured the popular vote. Between the popularity, and strategically campaigning in high electoral voting states, Jackson won the election. Andrew Jackson was considered one of the first presidents of the people because he supported the common man and nationalism.
Jackson also promised to improve expansion westward, thus leading to the encounters with the natives. Jacksons Presidency is marked by his huge battle with the Second Bank of the United States, charted by congress in 1816. He hated banks, all banks. He believed that bankers were like parasites that preyed upon the poor and honest working people of America (Cole 74). The Second Bank had the right to hold all government money, sold all government bonds, and made commercial loans. However, voters could not dictate its policies or reign in its power.
The Bank worked much like an autonomous government with few democratic controls over it. Jackson objected to it because although it had a powerful voice in national affair, it was not responsive to the will of the people (Remini 80). Wealth became concentrated in the hands of the few, and Jackson was determined not to let that happened. Because of these things, Jackson worked hard throughout his presidency to kill it.
When many feared that Jackson would not renew the Bank's charter that was due to come up in 1836, bank supporters chose to force the issue prior to the election of 1832. They assumed that Jackson would never go against the Second Bank during an election year. They were wrong. Jackson vetoed Biddle and Clays bill for a charter and then mounted a campaign to justify his actions. He issued one of the strongest veto messages in American history, comparing the Bank to a monster monopoly controlled by foreign and eastern stockholders (Remini 105). Jacksons established the precedent that a president could veto a law on policy rather than on constitutional grounds.
Jackson was famous for his strong implementation of the spoil system. He called his cabinet the Kitchen Cabinet (it was alleged to have met in the kitchen) comprised mostly of his friends - some having no experience in politics (Cole 93). It was not necessarily the loyalty towards the party as a whole, but the loyalty towards Andrew Jackson governed who was chosen or not. Where Jackson differed most from his predecessors was in his straightforward public endorsement of spoils as a desirable political instrument (Cole 111) He truly believed that all government jobs could be performed by any citizen with average intelligent and at least some form of common sense. Many argue though that Jackson had made the federal civil service a corrupt arm of the Democratic Party. Old Hickory's (Jacksons nickname) conflict between Indians continued during his presidency.
He carried a reputation as a ruthless slaughterer of hundreds of Native Americans. Pressured by land hungry whites who demanded more space, he and Congress passed the heated Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced a migration and relocation to the west by the U. S. Army. When nearly 16, 000 Cherokee refused to migrate from their original homeland, Jackson and Van Buren enforced the Army, beginning in 1831 and culminating in 1837, to move nearly all of the southern Indians westward to Indian Territory. This march of 800 miles, known to be the Trail of Tears was a tragedy for the Native American people and left nearly one fourth of them dead.
Henry Clay condemned Jackson's Native American policy, claiming that it was a stain on the nation's honor. More importantly though, Jackson's antipathy toward these peoples was typical of the frontier settler, and because this policy opened more land to settlement, most Westerners supported it with enthusiasm (Remini 127). However, it cannot be denied that Jackson blatantly denied the legal rights of Native Americans. Apparently his support of the will of the people did not include the will of the Indians, whom he thought were inferior. During Jackson's presidential years two states were admitted to the Union (Arkansas in 1836 and Michigan in 1837). He also made a very important good choice in choosing Roger Taney as one of his Supreme Court appointments.
Taney had an impact on American life long after Jackson's retirement. In 1836, the last year of Jacksons administration, Taney succeeded John Marshall as chief justice. He became well known for his pro-slavery position in the Dred Scott case in 1857. After succeeding John Marshall, Chief Justice Taney reflected Jacksons views when he refused to recognize Congress authority to ban slavery in territory areas. He also made it known that Blacks were inferior beings who had no rights which the white man was bound to respect" (Cole 156). The most dangerous and trying period for Jackson was South Carolinas attempt to secede from the Union.
Vice President John C Calhoun and his home state of South Carolina were enraged by the Tariff of Abominations that Jackson passed, who was convinced that he controlled the south. Calhoun supported nullification by anonymously writing a widely circulated defense of the doctrine called, the South Carolina Exposition and Protest (Remini 173). Jackson thought Calhoun threatened national unity and was personally offended by these remarks. In a struggle that placed the interests of a state above those of the Union, Jackson always stood resolutely behind the federal government and its supreme powers. When he spoke against nullification, Jackson powerfully declared: I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object to which it was formed (Remini 178). When Jackson returned to the White House in 1832, Congress passed an even higher tariff.
South Carolina seriously threatened to secede when it passed an Ordinance of Nullification to nullify the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and authorize the state government to block the collection of customs duties at the Port of Charleston (Remini 205). The state also called the militia to show the rest of the nation they meant business. Jackson became furious over these moves of treason and asked for congressional authority to collect the tariff in South Carolina at gunpoint. The Governor of Virginia supported South Carolina and threatened not to let federal troops pass if they were headed towards South Carolina to enforce the tariff. Enraged, Jackson threatened to have the Governors both head and ears brought before him. (Cole 211) The tension soothed over however when Jackson supported both Clay and Calhoun in a compromise that produced a new tariff with declining rates over the next decade. With this new tariff, Jackson could breath easy again as he avoided a near catastrophic consequence that could have catapulted America into its first Civil War.
In his eight-year tenure as President, Jackson proved not only to be an able military leader, but also a successful politician. Most white American males living in the 1830 s looked at Jackson and saw themselves (Remini 219). Unlike all the previous presidents before him, Jackson grew up uneducated and poor. But he worked his way up, and Americans saw him as the self-made man during his stay at the white house. No one could question his unwavering commitment to individual liberty that allowed him to strike down obstacles to its exercise, suck as the banks, the British, Indians, or disloyal members of his cabinet.
He was his own man: free-spirited, raw-boned, courageous and determined. Jackson made sure that throughout his stay as president; he always represented and acted in favor of the will of the people. He became a symbol of his age, and for Americans everywhere, he was a national hero, an icon (Cole 235). When it was all said and done, Jackson would go down as one of the most powerful and important presidents in American history. His effective use of the spoils system created the second American party system, opening all federal jobs for political patronage. He exercised the veto vigorously to control the legislature, providing the stepping stones for party leadership into the next century.
His Kitchen Cabinet demonstrated his understanding that partisanship and politics reached even into the White House. Also, he utilized his popularity masterfully in order to move his own political and economic agenda. He exercised more authority and leadership than any of his predecessors before him. If he is to be remembered, it will not be because he was the first Westerner and common man to bull his way up through the echelon to become president. His legacy will be that he is the only American for whom an era has been named The Age of Jackson (Remini 263). This analysis of Jacksons presidency suggests the following evaluation: Symbol of the country: A.
Chief party leader: C. His policy: C. The economy under his presidency: B. Global leader: D. Words Count: 1, 649. Bibliography Cole, Donald B.
The Presidency of Andrew Jackson. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Remini, Robert V. The Legacy of Andrew Jackson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
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Research essay sample on Andrew Jackson Native Americans
