Social Studies Strands Project Democracy in the Age of Jackson Grade 8 Joshua Mears

Social Studies Strands Project

Democracy in the Age of Jackson

Grade 8

Joshua Mears

Table of Contents

• Websites• American Heritage• People in Societies• World Interactions• Decision Making and Resources• Democratic Processes • Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities• Science, Technology, and Society

Websites

• http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist121/Part3/AgeofJackson.htm

• The Age of Jacksonian Democracy• http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist121/Par

t3/AgeofJackson.htm• Jacksonian Democracy• http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist121/Par

t3/AgeofJackson.htm• “Jacksonian Democracy”

http://www.nv.cc.va.us/home/nvsageh/Hist121/Part3/AgeofJackson.htm






Websites


• Jackson, Andrew: Jacksonian Democracy


• “Jacksonian Democracy”





American Heritage

• Activity 1: Create a timeline of major events defining Jackson’s presidency. Add illustrations appropriate to the character of the era. Include a personal explanation of qualities defining a “major” event. Compare and contrast your explanation with that of a fellow student. Reconcile the two into a joint timeline for presentation.

American Heritage

• Activity 2: Conduct a class discussion on the probable causes of trends and developments characteristic of Jacksonian democracy.

• Activity 3: Generate a short review of a Jackson biography, being certain to include its main contentions about Jackson’s personal qualities and political disposition.

American Heritage

• Activity 4: Read excerpts from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America as a means to explore historical foundations of contemporary cultural practices.

• Activity 5: Discuss John Jacob Astor in relation to the emergent “self-made-man” ethos.

People in Societies

• Activity 1: Carry out, in groups of four, Internet research on the state of humanities, science, and religion in Jacksonian America, relative to the state of these endeavors in two other contemporaneous societies. Using poster board, printouts, charts, and other appropriate material, create a visual aid to a class presentation of this comparative analysis.

People in Societies

• Activity 2: Discuss the Indian Removal Act as entry into the broader discussion of white-Indian relations during the Age of Jackson.

• Activity 3: Study maps of contemporary Indian settlement patterns in relation to the historical forces that generated them.

People in Societies

• Activity 4: Discuss the emergence of an American cultural vanguard (Emerson, Irving, Cooper, etc.) determined to forge a national identity independent of European prescriptions.

• Activity 5: Ask students to assume, in a short essay, the persona of a married woman in 1830s America.

World Interactions

• Activity 1: Examine political maps from the Jacksonian era. Focus on the westward trend. Ask students to conduct Internet research on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails. Introduce the concept of Manifest Destiny and ask students to consider its influence on the American attitude. Recall students to their study of Tocqueville. Read additional excerpts from his seminal work.

World Interactions

• Activity 2: Discuss Jackson’s opposition to tariffs in terms of the disparate economic impacts of the regulation on North and South. Discuss states’ rights and nullification.

• Activity 3: Present a broad review of post-Napoleonic Europe. Compare political trends in Western Europe with those of Jacksonian America.

World Interactions

• Activity 4: Discuss the Mexican War and Texas’ achievement of independence. Draw attention to the settlement patterns that precipitated this move for autonomy.

• Activity 5: Discuss the Spanish influence on the culture and demography of New Mexico Territory.

Decision Making and Resources

• Activity 1: Role play the saga over the Bank of the United States. The debate’s principals—Jackson, Clay, Webster, Biddle, Taney, and the American electorate—will square off over the propriety and legality of the Bank. It will resolve with the electorate handing Jackson a victory in 1832, the subsequent creation of pet banks, and the quick demise of the Bank of the United States.


• Activity 2: Discuss the contrasting nature of the Northern and Southern economies and how this contrast manifested as policy disputes.

• Activity 3: Discuss the logic of protectionism. Frame the 1830s tariff debate in terms of the contemporary debate over trade liberalization.


• Activity 4: Organize a field trip to a local bank. Enlist an experienced banker to explain the role of banks in the economy.

• Activity 5: Review the significance of federalism to the allocation of decision-making authority. Pursue an understanding of states’ rights as an ideology derived from federalist principles.

Democratic Processes

• Activity 1: Study the democratic spirit of Jacksonianism in relation to constitutional principles of individual freedom and empowerment. To what extent does the growth of suffrage and the revolt against federal power constitute a fulfillment of these principles. To what extent do certain other Jacksonian policies constitute violations of these principles?


• Activity 2: Reference Tocqueville for insight into the institutions inspired by the spirit of American democracy.

• Activity 3: Ask students to perform a silent reading of the section within the class text discussing the impact of the 1824 election on the rise of the Democrats and the fall of the Whigs.


• Activity 4: Offer a brief introduction to the gathering alliance of women’s suffrage and abolitionist interests. Focus on major personalities (Stanton, Grimke, Whittier, etc.).

• Activity 5: Review amendments to the Constitution as illustrations of the progressive nature of liberal democracy.

Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities

• Activity 1: Oversee a class discussion of the highly mutual relationship of right and duty. Show topically appropriate segments from the American Promise series. Generate case studies of this mutuality from the local political scene. Explore the concepts of negotiation, compromise, and civil discourse.


• Activity 2: Examine election statistics from the 1824, 1828, and 1832 elections. Identify trends in participation, proclivities, etc.

• Activity 3: Review the Bank of the U.S. role play exercise to understand the election of 1832 as a referendum on the Bank.


• Activity 4: Organize a mock city council session. Familiarize students with the local bureaucracy. Encourage them to attend a live council session and to address a self-researched issue in open forum.

• Activity 5: Organize a class discussion on the question of Jackson’s authentic commitment to popular democracy.

Science, Technology, and Society

• Activity 1: Ask students to perform Internet research on prominent inventors of the early and middle nineteenth century. Assign inventors and require a presentation that makes use of technology (e.g. overhead projector). Briefly dilate on the relationship of liberal politics to free scientific inquiry.


• Activity 2: Ask students to clip periodical stories about intersections of politics and technology (electronic voting machines, traffic light cameras, embryonic stem cell research).

• Activity 3: Discuss the significance of steam and coal power to population mobility and internal trade in the nineteenth century.


• Activity 4: Explain the removal of Indians to western territories as a function of the superior military power leveraged by whites. Generate contemporary analogs.

• Activity 5: Oversee debate on the extent to which government should regulate scientific research. Attempt to define the “public good.” Position questions of regulation within a federalist framework.

Documents

Social Studies Strands Project Democracy in the Age of Jackson Grade 8 Joshua Mears