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The Era of the “Common Man” and Jacksonian Democracy
Prior to the 1820s, most Americans were restricted from voting. States made voting laws that allowed only white men who owned land or paid a certain amount of taxes to vote. Women, Native Americans, and African Americans would not be allowed to vote for decades. However, as western expansion created new states and eliminated property requirements for voting, the “Era of the Common Man” emerged in which the number of eligible voters increased sevenfold. This changed the availability of electoral democracy from a privilege of the elite to something that nearly any white man could participate in. Now, the needs and wants of the average American, such as lower tariffs and more access to land, were better represented.
No one better represented this new world of American politics than President Andrew Jackson. Labeled “King Andrew” because of his broad use of presidential power, this war hero, slaveholder, and frontier lawyer embodied a raw, energetic new American national identity. His two terms as president were known for his attacks on the wealthy elites in the Northeast and his embrace of the West and South. He filled his administration with supporters; this spoils system rewarded them with jobs for their loyal service.
This era saw the growth of a new political division. The Federalists Party had faded, and the Democratic-Republican Party fractured into new parties: the National Republicans (often called the “Whigs”) and the Jacksonian Democrats, which would become the foundation of the modern Democratic Party.
The National Republicans, or Whigs, were led by Henry Clay. Situated in the Northeast, the supporters mostly consisted of upper-class urban professionals.The National Republican policies were pro-national bank, pro-tariff, and pro-American System.
The Jacksonian Democrats were led by Andrew Jackson. Their supporters were mostly located in the Southern and Western regions, and were slaveowners, small farmers, and urban workers. Their policies were anti-tariff, anti-bank, anti-large government, and pro-Western expansion.
Nullification Crisis
In both 1828 and 1832, Congress passed high tariffs, which had negative effects on Southern cotton exports. The state of South Carolina opposed these tariffs and declared that they were nullified within the state. The theory of nullification had been developed in the late 1700s and asserted that a state could declare a law that it considered to be unconstitutional to be null and void within the state. With the Force Bill of 1833, Jackson threatened military intervention if South Carolina did not pay the tariffs, and as a response, South Carolina threatened to secede—leave the Union. Henry Clay proposed a compromise tariff that smoothed out this Nullification Crisis, but tariffs would continue to be a touchy subject even through the 20th century, and the secession argument would come to a head with the Civil War.
Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears
President Jackson saw Native American tribes and their land claims as barriers to American western expansion. His willingness to use violence to push native peoples off their land to make way for white settlement resulted in the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which provided money and reservations in Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) in return for Native American promises to leave their ancestral homelands. This legislation focused primarily on native groups in the Southeast (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole). President Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court’s decision in Worcester v. Georgia, which declared Native tribes “independent political communities” with “natural rights” to the land on which they lived. Instead, more than 60,000 Native Americans were marched at gunpoint along the Trail of Tears to their new homes in Indian Territory. An estimated 10,000 Native Americans died on the trail. Another Supreme Court case, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, supported Jackson’s view, asserting that Native American tribes were “dependent nations” who were at the mercy of the U.S. government. These opposing views of Native American sovereignty would remain at odds well into the 20th century.
Second Bank of the United States and the Bank War
Jackson’s opposition to what he saw as the wealthy elite in the Northeast was best demonstrated by his opposition to the Second National Bank. The First National Bank was formed as part of Alexander Hamilton’s economic system. It was designed to help provide a basis for credit to the new American economy, help regulate currency, and generally provide stability to the economy. When the first bank’s charter expired in 1811, it was not renewed immediately. However, by 1816, the need for a new national bank seemed clear, at least to its biggest supporters.
Jackson, however, saw the bank as an organization designed to help the wealthy at the expense of small farmers and urban workers. Jackson’s opposition to the bank’s monopoly over issuing currency (state banks were prevented from doing so) and his general dislike of speculation (buying cheap land as an investment only to sell it later), paper currency, and other elements of a budding modern capitalist system resulted in what is sometimes called the Bank War. On one side was the new “Whig” Party (National Republicans), led by Henry Clay, fighting for the bank to be rechartered—or restarted. Jackson and his supporters were on the other side, arguing that smaller state banks should be supported instead of a national bank. Jackson would eventually win his battle against the bank, vetoing its recharter in 1836 and depositing federal funds into a number of “pet banks,” the smaller state banks he favored. This action made him a hero to the “common man” but destabilized the American banking system, making it more vulnerable to economic turbulence before a replacement for the national bank could be found.
