About theTime Period
jackson's presidency
Andrew Jackson had a rocky presidency. He had previously lost the election of 1824, which led to the demise of the caucus system. He created the Democratic party and the spoils system, setting the precedent of employing all of his supporters in governmental positions. According to historical records and commentary, we can see that the Jacksonian Democracy was not a practical way to run the government, with the older Jeffersonian Republic being a more practical way of running the nation. During Jackson's presidency, he made many controversial decisions, the most contentious of which was the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
After the act was passed, Jackson continued to try and eradicate the native population. In his most controversial decision during his presidency, he ordered the Trail of Tears, or the mandatory relocation of Cherokee Indians. During his presidency, nullification was also a huge issue. Nullification is the idea that states could disobey federal laws, if deemed unconstitutional. Although it was illegal, it became a major issue during the Jacksonian era. According to Jackson, nullification destroyed the union.
Jackson spent much of his presidential term downsizing the federal government and strengthening himself by using his veto power too much. He fought against reform movements that were calling for more awareness to social and economic problems. Following the pattern of his previously terrible decisions, he revoked the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, passed the "Specie Circular", and forced buyers to pay with coins instead of bills. Another crowning issue of Jackson's presidency was his conflicts with slavery, which eventually led to Turner's Rebelllion.
Andrew Jackson (pictured above) was a controversial president and was not very well-liked by the end of his term.
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Jacksonian Era
The Trail of Tears was the most alarming event caused by Andrew Jackson. Click the Image above to magnify the text in the image.
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Domestic Affairs
slavery in the United States
Slavery was the foundation of the agricultural system in the United States. It was used for 250 years, before the US government realized that it was unconstitutional and immoral. The first slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619 to help with tobacco production. At the time, it was not as influential of a practice as subsistence farming or indentured servitude, and proponents often compared slavery to the other two labor systems. Soon, however, it became a common practice throughout the American colonies, with the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 cementing the iron hands of slavery in the Southern United States.
Many slaves lived on large farms or plantations and made up about one-third of the entire southern population. This meant that since they were technically laborers of the state they lived in, representation of their severely compromised "personhood" was exploited by the southern farmers. Slaveowners fought for and passed the Three-Fifths Compromise that counted the slave population as three-fifths of the free person population in regards to legislative state representation.
Even though slaves were considered three-fifths human and two-fifths property, there were denied one hundred percent of the fundamental rights that all people were entitled to according to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. They were prohibited from reading, writing, and had strict congregational restrictions. Some slave revolts did occur, however hierarchy and regional differences among the slaves prevented them from coming together and leading organized wide-spread revolts.
The late 18th century saw the seeds of abolitionist sentiment being sown in the industrial North and the agricultural South was not pleased. Regional divisions became worse in 1820, when Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise banned slavery in all western territories north of latitude 36°30´. Unfortunately, this only proposed a temporary solution to the issue of slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. This new act allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders and served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery. Then, in 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that Negroes were not citizens and had no rights of citizenship, cementing the overturning of the Missouri Compromise.
In 1860, several Southern states attempted to secede from the Union after the election of President Abraham Lincoln, whom they regarded as a threat to the economic system of the South and was a strong opponent of slavery. Thie eventually caused the Civil War, which lasted for 5 years and had approximately 623,026 military deaths. It came to be known as the deadliest battle in American history. Eventually, all American slaves were freed after the Emancipation Proclamation and the addition of the Thirteenth Amendment. Segregation officially ended in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.