In what ways did the emerging sectional conflicts within the

United States manifest themselves in the election of

Andrew Jackson and the domestic policies of the nation

in the years 1828-1837?

NULLIFICATION DEBATES• 1828 - Tariff of “Abominations”• 1831- Peggy Eaton Affair• 1832 - Calhoun resigns as VP

– Tariff reduced by 10% - SC still furious– “Nullies” take over SC legislature and declare

Tariff “null and void.” – SC makes military preparations– Jackson prepares a military force

• 1833- Clay negotiates a compromise tariff to reduce by 10% over 8 years

• 1833- Congress passes Force Bill

Who “won” the Nullification Debate?

Did the “appeasement” of South Carolina

DELAY or ENCOURAGEsecession?

Jackson vs. the B.U.S.• Jackson and the West oppose the Bank of the

United States (BUS)• Clay attempts to humiliate Jackson in the 1832

elections by re-chartering the BUS early• Jackson vetoes the Bank and declares it

unconstitutional (contra McCulloch v MD)• Sectionalism b/w East and West deepens• file://C:\Users\zdziedzic\AppData\Roaming\com.nbcuni.aodplayer.38154C9B00B8386E5872F0

8BE16716F44323C112.1\Local Store\catalogue\nbcfiles\440.nbc

http

://m

emor

y.lo

c.go

v/se

rvic

e/pn

p/cp

h/3g

1000

0/3g

1200

0/3g

1290

0/3g

1298

3r.jp

g

Why did Jackson and the West oppose the BUS?

(see pg. 277)

Was there any basis to the charges against the BUS and

Biddle?

http

://m

emor

y.lo

c.go

v/se

rvic

e/pn

p/cp

h/3b

0000

0/3b

0300

0/3b

0300

0/3b

0307

4r.jp

g

President Jackson's Veto Message Regarding the Bank of the United States; July 10, 1832

VETO MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, July 10, 1832. To the Senate. (EXCERPT)

By documents submitted to Congress at the present session it appears that on the 1st of January, 1832, of the twenty-eight millions of private stock in the corporation, $8,405,500 were held by foreigners, mostly of Great Britain. The amount of stock held in the nine Western and Southwestern States is $140,200, and in the four Southern States is $5,623,100, and in the Middle and Eastern States is about $13,522,000. The profits of the bank in 1831, as shown in a statement to Congress, were about $3,455,598; of this there accrued in the nine western States about $1,640,048; in the four Southern States about $352,507, and in the Middle and Eastern States about $1,463,041. As little stock is held in the West, it is obvious that the debt of the people in that section to the bank is principally a debt to the Eastern and foreign stockholders; that the interest they pay upon it is carried into the Eastern States and into Europe, and that it is a burden upon their industry and a drain of their currency, which no country can bear without inconvenience and occasional distress.

The BUSPRO• Restrained the

“Wildcat” banks• Issued sound money• Made sound loans

available• Safe depository for

federal money

CON• Controlling of other

banks• Monopoly• Held vast influence in

Congress• Bribed/paid

newspapers• Favored Eastern

interests

ELECTION OF 1832

The war on the Bank

• Jackson pulls federal $ out of the BUS• Federal $ put in “pet banks” in friendly states• Biddle retaliates by calling in loans to other

banks• “Biddle’s Panic” hits 1836• Jackson issues Specie Circular• All of the above precipitates crash in Western

economy

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3a00000/3a05000/3a05300/3a05357r.jpg

The Emergence of the Whigs

• Whig party a coalition of forces, first united in censure of Jackson– Clay and National Republicans– Webster and New England ex-Federalists– States-rights southerners– Anti-Masonic party

• Whigs defended activist government in economics, enforcement of “decency”

The Election of 1836

The Rise and Fall of Van Buren• Martin Van Buren was Jackson’s

handpicked successor• Term began with Panic of 1837• Panic caused more by complex changes

in global economy than Jackson’s fiscal policy

• Laissez-faire philosophy prevented Van Buren from helping to solve the problems of economic distress

The Rise and Fall of Van Buren

• Whigs fully organized by 1840 • Whig candidate William Henry Harrison

– Image built of a common man who had been born in a log cabin

– Running mate John Tyler chosen to attract votes from states-rights Democrats

• Harrison and Tyler beat Van Buren because their revival of the American system seemed like a good response

Heyday of the Second Party System

• Election of 1840 marked rise of permanent two-party system in the U.S.

• Whigs and Democrats evenly divided the electorate for next two decades.

• Parties offered voters a clear choice– Whigs supported a “positive liberal state”:

government should support and protect industries that help economic growth

– Democrats supported “negative liberal state”: government should not interfere in economy

Heyday of the Second Party System

• Whigs– Industrialists, merchants, successful farmers,

more likely Protestant • Democrats

– Small farmers, manufacturing, more likely Catholic

De Tocqueville’s Wisdom

• Alexis de Tocqueville praised most aspects of American democracy

• Warned of future disaster if white males refused to extend liberty to women, African Americans, and Indians

Five Civilized Tribes• 1790-1830: US population increases 3x to

13 million• 125,000 N. Americans live east of

Mississippi• Cherokees, Seminoles, Creeks, Choctaws

and Chickasaws attempt to co-exist (AKA “Five Civilized tribes”)

• Cherokees create constitution, written language (Sequoyah)

• Some Cherokees run plantations with slaves

Removal of Native Americans

• Southeastern tribes: Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek and Chickasaw form the “Five Civilized tribes”.

• Develop formal govt., language, courts, and newspapers.• Sequoya invents written language.• Planters and Miners push for removal to get Indian lands• Jackson passes Indian Removal Act of 1830• Cherokee resist removal and sue Georgia in Supreme

Court, Worcester v. Georgia, 1832 and win their case.• Pres. Jackson and later Pres. Van Buren ignore Court’s

decision

http://intertribal.net/NAT/Cherokee/WebPgCC1/Original.htm

Who was “civilized,” and who was “savage”?

• 1829: gold discovered on Cherokee lands• Georgia legislature appropriates Cherokee lands• Cherokees appeal to US Supreme Court• Court upholds Cherokee claims and rights• Jackson refuses to enforce the Court’s order;

“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

• 1829: Jackson orders the forced removal of the Five tribes to reservations west of the Mississippi.

Indian Removal

Trail of Tears“In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1567.html

Cherokee letter protesting the Treaty of New Etocha Chief John Ross, "To the Senate and House of Representatives"

Red Clay Council Ground, Cherokee Nation, September 28, 1836]

By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralized, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.

25% of the Cherokees die on the “Trail of Tears” of cold, disease, and starvation.

•

Andrew Jackson's Second Annual Message What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than 12,000,000 happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion?

Can it be cruel in this Government when, by events which it can not control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home than the settled, civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government toward the red man is not only liberal, but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with their population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement.

Howard Zinn A People’s History of the United States

“Jackson's instructions to an army major sent to talk to the Choctaws and Cherokees put it this way:

Say to my reel Choctaw children, and my Chickasaw children to listen-my white children of Mississippi have extended their law over their country. .. . Where they now are, say to them, their father cannot prevent them from being subject to the laws of the state of Mississippi. . .. The general government will be obliged to sustain the States in the exercise of their right. Say to the chiefs and warriors that I am their friend, that I wish to act as their friend but they must, by removing from the limits of the States of Mississippi and Alabama and by being settled on the lands I offer them, put it in my power to be such-There, beyond the limits of any State, in possession of land of their own, which they shall possess as long as Grass grows or water runs. I am and will protect them and be their friend and father.” (italics mine)

Settlers and Native Americans

1832: Black Hawk War• Chief Black Hawk leads

Sauk and Fox nations as they fight US expansion in Illinois.

• Sauk and Fox forced west of the Mississippi.

• Gen. Winfield Scott leads US forces.

• A young Abe Lincoln is in the militia.

http

://w

ww

.co.

kane

.il.u

s/H

isto

ry/s

ectio

n03.

htm

The Election of 1836