uring the turn of the 17 century, America’s citizens recognized the nation was poised for change, permanently transforming the way our nation’s leaders are chosen. Broad adjustments in electoral process gave the common man more of a voice in the government. First, by allowing all white men the ability to vote, not just land owners. Also by allowing the electors to be elected by the people, and not the state legislature, American citizens had a more direct connection to the electors of the presidency.
After being born to a poor South Carolina family, Jackson managed to become a rich landowner and noteworthy lawyer and politician. Along with being the hero of the war of 1812 with his crushing victory in the battle of New Orleans, Jackson was the most popular man in America. He started his quest for the presidency when John Quincy Adams became president in 1824.
He accused John and Henry Clay to have a “corrupt bargain”; he then decided to create his own political party to beat Adams in the next election. Being a president of the people and extremely popular with the common man, he was a shoe in for the 1828 presidency.
Now if you think about it, if you really looked at all the things he has done, you would probably agree we me and say this Jackson guy has done a pretty good job as president. Right from the very beginning of his term, he was a president that liked to get involved. It’s good to finally get a president who actually gets things done, not like another Adams. He was a new breed of president. He believed that the president should take an active role in the making of governmental policies. Along with exerting the power of the presidency, like the power of veto. He used this power to its fullest extent by vetoing 12 bills in his 8 year term while all the presidents before him have only used the veto 9 times. Jackson was also the first president to use the pocket veto, which is a way to kill a bill at the end of a session of congress by refusing to sign it or veto it. The way Jackson used his cabinet was also brand new. Now he appointed his cabinet but never really used, instead he discussed most of the important matters with a select group of friends, which later became referred to as the kitchen cabinet.
Jackson made his biggest impacts with his policies on Indian affairs. All of his decisions in this matter were top notch. Around the start of the 1820s there were about 125,000 Native Americans, which were almost all, considered as savages that just stood in the way of the peaceful settlement of west. Now even though the average Americans views that the native Americans are savages were obviously wrong, they were right on the fact that the tribes had to be moved west. Jackson understood this to and passed one of the most controversial pieces of legislation, the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which provided funds to move the Indians still living east of the Mississippi to new reservations on the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. Soon after its ratification every tribe in the south west every tribe save the Cherokee signed treaties with the U.S. government and moved west. The Cherokee are a special case. Since 1791, the U.S. had recognized the Cherokee’s as a separate nation in North West Georgia. In 1828, Georgia passed a law voiding all Cherokee laws and in 1830, another Georgia law stated all whites living in the Cherokee territories had to swear allegiance to Georgia. Then in 1832, the Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court and received a ruling in their favor, but Andrew Jackson didn’t agree.
