Andrew Jackson was the 7th president of the United States, and is known today as "the people's president". Some of his most prominent actions were his work in the bank war, his Indian removal and his use of the soils system. Although he is referred to as the people's president, I personally believe that the majority of his presidential actions were detrimental towards the common man. The essential question for this lesson was: "Is Andrew Jackson's long-standing reputation as "the people's president" deserved? Why? Why not?" I believe that as a whole Jackson does not deserve this reputation, because although he tried to help the people in some cases, he didn't listen to the people. In class, we learned this information by splitting into groups and each going more in depth on a topic, and then doing a presentation on it. My group did a PowerPoint on the Topic of the spoils system.
Jackson believed that the banks had too much power, and because of this power they controlled the economy. When congress voted to renew the bank, Jackson vetoed the law. Some people believed that his veto was putting the people's liberty in danger, but Jackson believed that the banks as they were allowed people who weren't not elected to run the economy. The bank was supporting corporations, which Jackson did not agree with because he thought that they could grow too large, but consumers supported corporations because they thought that they could help the economy. Jacksons intentions with the bank war were good, and he was trying to do what was right for the people. Although not everyone agreed with the way that Jackson was trying to help them, I do believe that this issue shows that Jackson was the people's president. He did what he thought was best with the people's interest in mind.
The next issue of Jacksons presidency was the Indian Removal. In order for more settlers to come to America, he forced Indian tribes to leave their lands against their will and move to the west. This occured during the "Trail of Tears" in 1838. The Indians did not support moving, and wanted to stay in the land of their fathers rather than moving to unknown land. When the Indians were forced to move, thousands died because of the harsh conditions and they were forced to keep moving instead of doing their death rituals. I believe that the issue shows how Andrew Jackson was only "the people's president" to a select few. The Indians had fought for the US in many wars and instead of thanking them for their help Jackson treated them inhumanly, and forced over 100,000 Indians to move against their will.
The last issue that Jackson dealt with was the spoils system. A spoil system is when a political party or leader gives jobs to his supporters after he has won and election. After Jackson won, people who did not support him lost their jobs and were replaced by his supporters, regardless of their skill in the field. The goverment was negatively affected because of this. Jackson decided to give the job of handling the port of New York to Van Buren, a known criminal, and did not listen to people's thoughts against this. Van Burnen ended up leaving the port with over 1 million dollars. I believe that this shows how biased Andrew Jackson was, and he ended up damaging the effectiveness of the goverment in order to give his supporters jobs. He may be viewed as the people's president in his supporters eyes, but for all other citizens he was clearly biased and made decisions without considering how they would effect others.
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