The Presidency of Andrew Jackson

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The Presidency of Andrew Jackson

• January 19, 2011
• Adapting Project History

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C-Span Presidential Leadership Rankings

• Public Persuasion
• Crisis Leadership
• Economic Management
• Moral Authority
• International Relations
• Administrative Skills

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C-Span-2

• Relations with Congress
• Vision/Setting An Agenda
• Pursued Equal Justice For All
• Performance Within Context of Times

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C-Span Presidential Leadership Survey (2009, 2000)

• Abraham Lincoln 902, 1,1
• George Washington 854, 2,3
• Franklin D. Roosevelt 837, 3, 2
• Theodore Roosevelt 781, 4,4
• Harry S. Truman 708, 5,5
• John F. Kennedy 701, 6,8
• Thomas Jefferson 698, 7,7
• Dwight D. Eisenhower 689, 8,9
• Woodrow Wilson 683, 9,6
• Ronald Reagan 671, 10, 11

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Presidents, 11-20

• Lyndon B. Johnson 641, 11, 10
• James K. Polk 606, 12, 12
• Andrew Jackson 606, 13, 13
• James Monroe 605, 14, 14
• Bill Clinton 605, 15, 21
• William McKinley 599, 16,15
• John Adams 545, 17, 16
• George H. W. Bush 542, 18, 20
• John Quincy Adams 542, 19, 19
• James Madison 535, 20, 18

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Presidents, 21-30

• Grover Cleveland 523, 21, 17
• Gerald R. Ford 509, 22, 23
• Ulysses S. Grant 490, 23, 33
• William Howard Taft 485, 24,24
• Jimmy Carter 474, 25, 22
• Calvin Coolidge 469,26, 27
• Richard M. Nixon 450, 27, 25
• James A. Garfield 445, 28, 29
• Zachary Taylor 443, 29,28
• Benjamin Harrison 442, 30, 31

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Presidents, 31-42

• Martin Van Buren 435, 31, 30
• Chester A. Arthur 420, 32, 32
• Rutherford B. Hayes 409, 33, 26
• Herbert Hoover 389, 34, 34
• John Tyler 372, 35, 35
• George W. Bush 362, 36, NA
• Millard Fillmore 351, 37, 35
• Warren G. Harding 327, 38, 38
• William Henry Harrison 324, 39, 39
• Franklin D. Pierce 287, 40, 39
• Andrew Johnson 258, 41, 40
• James Buchanan 227, 42, 41

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Election of 1828

• Jackson supporters viewed Jacksons election as
  an election of the people over the politicians
• Panic of 1819 aroused healthy suspicion and
  skepticism of politicians
• Jackson movement part of and stimulated radical
  egalitarianism
• Election of Jackson symbolized growing assumption
  that one man good as another

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Inauguration of Jackson

• Attracted thousands to Washington to usher in new
  era of government
• Reception practically turned into a riot
• Daniel Webster I never saw anything like it
  before. They really seem to think the country is
  to be rescued from dreadful danger

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Washington Hostess on Inauguration

• The Majesty of the People had disappeared, and a
  rabble, a mob, of boys, Negroes, women, children,
  scrambling, fighting, romping. What a pity, what
  a pity! No arrangements had been made, no police
  officers placed on duty and the whole house had
  been inundated by the rabble mob. We came too
  late. The President, after having been literally
  nearly pressed to death and almost suffocated and
  torn to pieces by

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Washington Hostess on the Inauguration 2

• the people in their eagerness to shake hands with
  Old Hickory, and retreated through the back way
  or south front and had been escorted to his
  lodgings at Gadsbys. Cut glass and china to the
  amount of several thousand dollars had been
  broken in the struggle to get the refreshments,
  punch and other articles had been carried out in
  tubs and buckets, but had it been in hogsheads

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Washington Hostess on the Inauguration 3

• it would have been insufficient, ice creams, and
  cake and lemonade, for 20,000 people, for it is
  said the number were there, tho I think the
  estimate exaggerated. Ladies fainted, men were
  seen with bloodied noses and such a scene of
  confusion took place as is impossible to
  describe--those who got in could not get out by
  the door again, but had to scramble out of the
  windows.

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Jacksons Inaugural
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Jacksons Inaugural
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Jacksons Winning Coalition

• States rightists and strict constructionists
  dislike nationalist policies of Clay and Adams
• Bank men, anti-bank men, high and low tariff men
• Former Federalists using Jacksons prestige to
  re-enter politics
• New man in politics--men hoped to use politics to
  rise on social scale

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Jacksons Conception of the Presidency

• Few Presidents enter Office with well-developed
  Conception of Office
• Shaped by Own History and Experiences,
  Personality and Character
• Shaped by Demands and Crises Faced while in Office

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Jacksons Conception of the Presidency

• History Westerner, Outsider, Military Background
  and Election of 1824
• Personal Character and Personality, He was
  impetuous and cautious, ruthless and
  compassionate, suspicious and generous. Driven
  by ambition, he was a skillful, hardheaded
  political operator.

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Jackson and the Spoils System

• Jackson believe supporters should be rewarded on
  grounds of necessity and principle
• Entrenched bureaucracy with life tenure viewed as
  undemocratic not responsive to people
• Jacksonians believe in rotation in office
• Political offices change hands periodically
• give more people opportunity
• Government jobs simple anyone could do them
• Symbolic influence--US government by and of the
  people--one man as good as another

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Banking in the U.S.

• Banks played major role in the creation of
  capital
• Capital needed for roads, canals, railroads,
  steamboats
• As well as for land, labor and materials
• Credit has bought our land, made our canals,
  improved our rivers, cleared our fields, founded
  our churches, and erected our colleges and
  schools.

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Growth of Banks
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Bank Notes in Millions
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Banking as a Political Issue

• BUS most important bank--repository of federal
  funds, largest corporation in country, regulated
  state banks (in theory)
• BUS had been controversial since Hamilton had
  proposed first BUS
• Panic of 1819 alienated large number of Americans
  from banking and credit system
• Widespread feeling that Panic and depression
  retribution for speculative fever after 1815

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Deep Suspicion of Banking

• Banks--not just BUS---symbolized unsettling
  transformation of American society from an
  agrarian to a commercial society
• Jacksonian Democrats motley group--some for
  BUS---others opposed---some for state banks and
  others opposed to all banks

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Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844)

• Brilliant young man from influential Pennsylvania
  family
• Asked by William Clark to write history of Lewis
  and Clark expedition
• Edited leading literary journal in US
• President of BUS, 1823-39

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Nicholas Biddle
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Nicholas Biddle
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Biddle and the BUS

• Biddle naïve, indiscreet, and arrogant
• Asked by US Senate whether BUS ever oppressed
  state banks
• Biddle answered There are few bankswhich might
  not have been destroyed by an exertion of the
  power of the Bank. None have ever been injured.
  Many have been saved. And more have been, and
  are, constantly relieved when it is found that
  they are solvent but are suffering under
  temporary difficulty.

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Presidential Election of 1832

• Biddle miscalculated and requested (on the advice
  of Henry Clay) a bill to grant new charter for
  BUS in early 1832
• Believed that Jackson would be forced to sign
  recharter bill for popular Bank
• If Jackson failed to sign, it would be used as
  campaign issue for Clays advantage
• Bank recharter bill passed Congress

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Campaigning Against Jackson
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First Bank of the United States
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Second Bank of the United States
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The Banking Crisis Jacksons Veto

• BUS Chartered in 1816 for 20 Years
• Recharter Bill in 1832 Vetoed by Jackson
• Veto Message Against on Policy Grounds BUS
  Unconstitutional BUS Foster Inequality
• Denounced foreign stockholders
• Jackson Vetoed 12 Measures in 2 Terms 6
  Predecessors Only Veto 10 Total

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Jacksons Message

• It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful
  too often bend the acts of government to their
  selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will
  always exist under every just government.
  Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth
  can not be produced by human institutions. In
  the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the
  fruits of superior industry, economy and virtue,

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Jacksons Message 2

• every man is entitled to protection by law but
  when the laws undertake to add to these natural
  and just advantages artificial distinctions, to
  grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive
  privileges, to make the rich richer and the
  potent more powerful, the humble members of
  society--the farmer, mechanics, and laborers--who
  have neither the time nor the means of securing
  like favors to themselves,

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Jacksons Message 3

• have a right to complain of the injustice of
  their Government. There are no necessary evils
  in government. Its evils exist only in its
  abuses. If it would confine itself to equal
  protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower
  its favors alike on the high and the low, the
  rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified
  blessing. In the act before me there seems to be
  a wide and unnecessary departure from these just
  principles.

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King Andrew
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The Monster
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The Banking Crisis Withdrawal of Funds

• Jackson Fires Secretary of Treasury, William
  Duane
• Replacement, Roger Taney Withdraws Funds from BUS
  in 1833
• Question Can the President Fire a Cabinet Member?

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The Banking Crisis Congress Versus the President

• Senate Critics of Jackson Charge Executive
  Usurpation, Boldness, Innovation and Defiance
• Resolutions of Censure Pass Senate
• By dismissing the late Secretary of Treasury
  because he would not, contrary to his sense of
  his own duty remove the federal deposits from
  the Bank of the United States and by appointing
  his successor to effect such removal.the
  President has assumed the exercise of power of
  the treasury of the United States, not granted to
  him by the constitution and law, and dangerous to
  the liberty of the people.

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The Banking Crisis Congress Versus the President

• Whig Conception of President
• Whig View President Controls Sword and Congress
  Controls Purse
• Jacksons Response to Senate Unauthorized by
  Constitution, President the direct
  representative of the American People....
• Calhoun What effrontery, what boldness of
  assertion! The immediate representative! Why he
  never received a vote from the American people.
• Standoff Between Congress and Jackson

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Clays Attack on Jackson

• Clay Jacksons notions of Presidency a military
  idea, wholly incompatible with free government
• We are the midst of a revolution, hitherto
  bloodless, but rapidly tending towards a total
  change of the pure republican character of
  theGovernment, and to the concentration of all
  power in the hands of one man. The eyes and
  hopes of the American people are anxiously turned
  to Congress.

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Clays Attack on Jackson (2)

• They feel that they have been deceived and
  insulted their confidence abused their
  interests betrayed and their liberties in
  danger. They see a rapid and alarming
  concentration of all power in one mans hands.
  They see that, by the exercise of the positive
  authority of the Executive, and his negative
  power exerted over Congress, the will of one man
  alone prevails, and governs the republic.

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Censure of Jackson

• Jackson censured for executive usurpation of
  power
• Deposits not restored to BUS
• BUS charter expired in 1836
• Last days of Jacksons presidencySenate voted to
  expunge resolution of censure

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How Did Jackson Revolutionize the Presidency

• Challenged Congress for Control
• Saw President as Direct Representative of America
  People
• Ended Tradition of Strong, Independent Cabinet
• Short-Lived Revolution
• Model for Twentieth Century Presidents