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MAP 11.2a The Growth of Universal White Male Suffrage Kentucky was the first western state toenact white male suffrage without tax or property qualifications. Other western states followed, andby 1820, most of the older states had dropped their suffrage restrictions as well. By 1840, morethan 90 percent of the nation’s white males could vote. But although voting was democratized forwhite men, restrictions on free African American male voters grew tighter, and women wereexcluded completely.
MAP 11.2b The Growth of Universal White Male Suffrage
Andrew Jackson 178 647,286(68) (56)
John Quincy Adams 83 508,064(32) (44)
MAP 11.4 The Election of 1828 Andrew Jackson’s victory in 1828 was the first success ofthe new national party system. The coalition of state parties that elected him was national, notregional. Although his support was strongest in the South and West, his ability to carryPennsylvania and parts of New York demonstrated his national appeal.
FIGURE 11.3 Pre–Civil War Voter Turnout The turnout of voters in presidential electionsmore than doubled from 1824 to 1828, the year Andrew Jackson was first elected.Turnoutsurged to 80 percent in 1840, the year the Whigs triumphed.The extension of suffrage to allwhite men, and heated competition between two political parties with nationwide membership,turned presidential election campaigns into events with great popular appeal.
In this political cartoon, Jackson destroys the Second Bank of the United States bywithdrawing government deposits. As the Bank crashes, it crushes the director NicholasBiddle (depicted as the Devil), wealthy investors (with moneybags) and the newspaper editors(surrounded by paper) who opposed Jackson on this issue. SOURCE:Library of Congress.
This contemporary cartoon bitterly depicts the terrible effects of the Panic of 1837 on ordinarypeople—bank failures, unemployment, drunkenness, and destitution—which the artist links tothe insistence of the rich on payment in specie (as Jackson had required in the SpeciesCircular of 1836). Over the scene waves the American flag, accompanied by the ironicmessage, “61st Anniversary of our Independence.” SOURCE:Panic of 1837 cartoon,The Times. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Source: Andrew Jackson's veto message (July 10, 1832) I sincerely regret that in the act before me I can perceive none of those modifications of the bank charter which are necessary, in my opinion, to make it compatible with justice, with sound policy, or with the Constitution of our country. . . . The present Bank of the United States . . . enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking, . . . almost a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange. It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class. Of the twenty-five directors of this bank five are chosen by the Government and twenty by the citizen stockholders. . . . It is easy to conceive that great evils to our country and its institutions might flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men irresponsible to the people.Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.
Source: Daniel Webster's reply to Jackson's veto message (July 11, 1832)
[This message] extends the grasp of executive pretension over every power of the government. . . . It appeals to every prejudice which may betray men into a mistaken view of their own interests, and to every passion which may lead them to disobey the impulses of their understanding. It urges all the specious topics of State rights and national encroachment against that which a great majority of the States have affirmed to be rightful and in which all of them have acquiesced. It sows, in an unsparing manner, the seeds of jealousy and ill-will against that government of which its author is the official head. It raises a cry that liberty is in danger, at the very moment when it puts forth claims to powers heretofore unknown and unheard of. It effects alarm for the public freedom, when nothing endangers that freedom so much as its own unparalleled pretenses. This even, is not all. It manifestly seeks to inflame the poor against the rich; it wantonly attacks whole classes of the people, for the purpose of turning against them the prejudices and the resentments of the other classes. It is a state paper which finds no topic too exciting for its use, no passion too inflammable for its address and its solicitation.
President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832 Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties to that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from it; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A compact is an agreement or binding obligation. It may by its terms have a sanction or penalty for its breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanction, it may be broken with no other consequence than moral guilt; if it have a sanction, then the breach incurs the designated or implied penalty. .. The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject-my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution… Their object is disunion, but be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is TREASON. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the head of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences-on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment-on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country.
John O’Sullivan on “Manifest Destiny” 1839
Excerpted from "The Great Nation of Futurity,"America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds...We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us...We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -- "shall not prevail against it."
THESIS STATEMENT
Thesis Statements Thesis 1: Jacksonian Democrats, supporters and followers of Andrew Jackson, were indeed the guardians of democracy and the interests of the common people. They insisted on a strict adherence to the Constitution, the expansion of political democracy, and the protection of individual liberty and equality of economic opportunity. There were, however, some areas where they failed. Thesis 2: Supporters and followers of Andrew Jackson believed themselves to be the guardians of the Constitution and the common people and took credit for an increase in universal male suffrage during the 1820's and 1830's. However, the issues of slavery, the removal of Native Americans, women's rights, states' rights, and the national bank recharter and veto offered more challenges than the Jacksonian Democrats could successfully handle. The Jacksonian Democrats were more the beneficiaries of political democracy than the guardians of it.
