Sean Oulashin

11/22/2013
APUSH Period 3

Jackson Reading Questions

1) What was the “corrupt bargain”?

In the election of 1824, neither Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, nor William Clay received the majority of the
Presidential Electoral Votes, putting the fate of the election in the hands of the House of Representatives. The House elected
Adams over Andrew. At the time, it was believed that Clay was the one who persuaded the House to vote for Adams, who then
made him Secretary of State. Jackson pronounced this as a “corrupt bargain” because he ended up losing to John Adams, despite
the fact that he had a plurality.

2) What events during John Quincy Adams’ presidency helped Andrew Jackson win the presidency of 1828?
Though Andrew Jackson was a popular candidate for the election of 1824, he was won over by John Quincy Adams.
Jackson was popular because he grew up in a poor family, presenting himself as no more than a common man. Despite this fact,
he still ended up losing.
During Adams’ presidency, in hopes of becoming elected for 1828, he tried to implement various policies that would
help America in general. These ended up not helping, lowering his popularity-with-the-people level. He also threw some below-
the-belt punches to Jackson, claiming that Jackson was cheating on his own wife and so forth. This made the general populace as
well as Jackson’s supporters very angry, thus helping Jackson become the elected president in 1828.

3) What changes in American society and in the electorate made Andrew Jackson a popular candidate in 1828? Why was
this presidential election seen as revolutionary?
Because the election of 1824 was done so behind closed doors, the “corrupt bargain” seemed to be unfair, as it cheated
Jackson out of presidency. What had seemed to be a common political practice then turned into one of secrecy, suspicion, and
against democracy.
Between the four years of 1824 to 1828, two main parties grew : The National Republicans (in support of Adams), and
The Democratic Republicans (in support of Jackson). Jackson’s followers came to the conclusion that Adams was a corrupt
Aristocrat, maintaining that he had thwarted the will of the people with the “corrupt bargain”. Jackson’s followers presented
Jackson as merely a common man from Tennessee, but in reality he was a very wealthy farmer. This led to support from the
south and west, while Adams was only strongly being supported in New England. In 1828, Jackson won with a vote of 178 to 81.

4) What were the main points of John C. Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest?
● Written by John C. Calhoun, this document said that if the Tariff of 1828 (the Tariff of Abominations) was not
repealed, South Carolina would secede from the nation. Some of the main points that Calhoun talks about are :
● Congress cannot extend its constitutional authority;
● Congress cannot enact tariffs that are not justified by public necessity
● The tariff is therefore unconstitutional
● The tariff to protect domestic manufacture goes against a “simple, consolidated government”
● The tariff actually was not enacted to regulate commerce, a Constitutional power of Congress, but to prohibit
foreign trade
● The power to protect manufacture is not a Constitutional power
● Even if the tariff does regulate commerce, as it is too oppressive, it is an abuse of power

5) What was the nullification crisis and how was it resolved?

The nullification crisis was created in part by South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification. In 1828, the Tariff of
Abominations was enacted, but opposed in the South because of the tax it put on imported goods. South Carolina in
particular deemed this tariff as well as the Tariff of 1832 null and void, thus not active within the boundaries of the state.
The crisis was resolved with the Tariff of 1833, known as the Compromise Tariff. It guaranteed that all tariff rates
above 20 percent would be reduced ten percent every two years. The final reductions would be paid back up to 20 percent in
the next decade. In its most basic form, it forced import tariffs to decline over the next decade, making the South happy.

6) What was the Indian Removal? Who was most in favor of forcing the Cherokees (and the five civilized tribes) to
give up lands in the southeast and why? What was Jackson’s policy on indian removal?
The Indian Removal Act (1830) was an act by Andrew Jackson, asking congress for permission to move Native
Americans to a territory on what is now Oklahoma because they were living on “prime real estate”. He was opposed by
Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster of Congress. People in favor of this movement may have been Jackson’s supporters. There
were vast amounts of people coming into the United States, and the Indians were populating lands for which Americans
could have made money off of.

7) What principles of Indian law did the Marshall Court establish in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v.
Georgia? Why did Jackson refuse to enforce the court’s decision on Worcester?
In the case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia , the court ruled that the Cherokee people did not have original
jurisdiction over the case, saying that they were a dependent nation on the United States. The case between the Cherokee
Nation and Georgia opened many laws to be passed by the Georgia State Legislature in 1828. This case took away the
freedoms of the tribe were being taken away.
In Worcester v. Georgia, the case dealt with several laws passed in the 1800s that followed an agreement with the
Cherokee tribe. The laws were regarding a prohibition on Indian territories, saying that only Non-Indians with special
permission from the government had the rights to be on that land. The case was caused by Sam Worcester, who was living
on Indian territory, refused to move from the land, even though he did not have permission to live on the lands. This case
was in support of the Indians, protecting their native land.
Jackson refused the Worcester decision because he was in favor of Indian removal because he was in the belief
that there was land to be explored to the west.

8) Why did Jackson oppose the recharter of the Bank of the United States? How did this opposition of the Bank seem
to indirectly cause the Panic of 1837?
On July 10th, 1832, Andrew Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Bank of the United States because he believed
that it was unconstitutional. He believed that having a bank like that concentrated too much of the Nation's financial strength
in one place. He regarded that making currency “out of thin air” was inherently wrong. He regarded it as an instrument to
subvert democracy. He also believed that the bank could have used the money to oppose his reelection.
With the expiration of the bank in 1836, the United States was left with no central institution for federal funds.
Jackson ordered that money should be dispersed into local banks (which he called “pet banks”), preferencing ones that were
friendly to him. The smaller banks began printing more and more paper money which had no real value behind it, leading to
inflation. On top of inflation, citizens were using the money to finance infrastructure improvements, as well as land
speculation. All of this led up to the Panic of 1837, one of America’s worst economic downfalls.
9) Describe the two-party system that emerged by the time of the presidential election of 1836?
By the time of the presidential election of 1836, the two party system that emerged was ???

10) Based on Jackson’s economic, constitutional, and territorial policies, how would you describe the Jacksonian
democracy? What groups of people in the United States in the 1830’s would have likely called themselves Jacksonian
Democrats, and why?
The age of Jackson was more democratic than anything that had ever come before it. It opened the doors for
modern American politics, in that Jackson made a lot of use and expansion of the Executive branch of government, and he
also indirectly argued that the President was the most powerful elected official in the country. Though Jackson was elected
President in a very democratic manner, he ran the government in a way quite different from the way that he was elected. His
whole campaign centered around being a “common man,” but he put a lot of pressure and made use of the Executive
Branch.
In the United States in the 1830’s, groups of people in the north would be more supportive of Jacksonian
Democracy because though he was “for the people,” he still favored the north ; one example of this would be how he
deposited a lot of money into state banks in the north rather than the south, due to some of the conflicts he had with them
during the Tariff of 1828.