APUSH Chapter 13
APUSH Chapter 13
APUSH Chapter 13
3. Jacksons followers presented their hero as a frontiersman and a stalwart champion of the
common man and denounced Adams as a corrupt aristocrat and argued that the will of the people
had been thwarted in 1825 by the backstairs bargain of Adams and Clay
4. Much of this talk was political hyperbole as Jackson was a wealthy planter and Adams though
perhaps an aristocrat, was far from corrupt (puritanical models were too elevated)
5. Mudslinging reached new lows in 1828, and the electorate developed a taste for bare-knuckle
politics; Adams would not stoop to gutter tactics but his backers did
6. Criticism of Adams was directed at the federal salaries Adams had received over time
7. On voting day the electorate split on largely sectional lines
a. Jacksons strongest support came from the West and South; the middle states and the Old
Northwest were divided, while Adams won the backing of his own New England and the
propertied better elements of the Northeast part of the United States
b. Buy when the popular vote was converted to electoral votes, General Jacksons triumph could
not be denied as Adams was beaten by the electoral count of 178 to 83
c. Although a considerable part of Jacksons support was lined up particularly in New York and
Pennsylvania, the political center of gravity clearly had shifted away from the conservative
eastern seaboard toward emerging states across the mountain
D. Old Hickory as President
1. Old Hickorys irritability and emaciated condition resulted in tuberculosis and lead poisoning
from two bullets that he carried in his body from near-fatal duels
2. Jacksons upbringing had its shortcomings as he grew up without parental restraints
3. The youthful Carolinian shrewdly moved up West to Tennessee, where fighting was prized
above writing; there, through native intelligence, force of personality, and powers of leadership,
he became a judge and a member of Congress (profound passions)
4. The first president from the West, the first nominated at a formal part convention in 1832, and
only the second without a college education (Washington), Jackson was unique
a. His university was adversity & he had risen from the masses, but was not one of them
b. Essentially a frontier aristocrat, he owned many slaves, cultivated broad acres, and lived in
one of the finest mansions in America (the Hermitage near Nashville)
c. More westerner than easterner, more country gentlemen than common clay, more courtly than
crude, he was hard to fit into a neat category
b. In 1824 Congress had increased the general tariff significantly, but wool manufacturers
bleated for still-higher barriers; Jacksonites promoted a high-tariff bill, expecting to be defeated,
which would give a black eye to President Adams
c. To their surprise, the tariff passed in 1828 and Jackson received the tariff problem
2. Southerners, as heavy consumers of manufactured goods with little manufacturing industry of
their won, were hostile to tariffs; they were outraged by the Tariff of 1828; hotheads branded it
the Black Tariff or the Tariff of Abominations
3. Why did the South react so angrily against the tariff?
a. Southerners believed that the Yankee tariff discriminated against them
b. The bustling Northeast was experiencing a boom in manufacturing, the developing West was
prospering from rising property values and a multiplying population, and the energetic
Southwest was expanding into virgin cotton lands
c. But the Old South was falling on hard times and the tariff was a scapegoat;
d. Southerners sold their cotton and farm produce in a world market unprotected by tariffs but
were forced to buy their manufactured goods in an American market heavily protected by tariffs
(protectionism protected Yankee and middle-state manufacturers; the farmers and planters of the
Old South felt they were stuck
4. But much deeper issues underlay the southern outcryin particular, a growing anxiety about
possible federal interference with the institution of slavery
a. The congressional debate on the Missouri Compromise had kindled those anxieties and they
were further fanned by an aborted slave rebellion in Charleston in 1822, led by a free black
named Denmark Vesey (South Carolina tied to British West Indies)
b. Abolitionism in America might similarly use the power of the government in Washington to
suppress slavery in the South (the tariff was the issue, to take a strong stand on principle against
all federal encroachment on states rights)
5. South Carolinians took the lead in protesting against the Tariff of Abominations and their
legislation went so far as to publish in 1828 a pamphlet known as The South Carolina
Exposition, which had been secretly written by John C. Calhoun
6. The Exposition denounced the recent tariff as unjust and unconstitutional; it bluntly and
explicitly proposed that the states should nullify the tariff
4. Jackson evidently consoled himself with the belief that Indians could preserve their native
culture sin the wide-open West; Jacksons policy led to the forced uprooting of more than
100,000 Indians; in 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, providing for the
transplanting of all Indians tribes then resident east of the Mississippi
a. Ironically, the heaviest blows fell on the Five Civilized Tribes
b. In the ensuing decade, countless Indians died on forced marches to the newly established
Indian Territory where they were to be permanently free (15 years)
5. Suspicious of white intentions from the start, Sauk and Fox braves from Illinois and
Wisconsin, ably led by Black Hawk, resisted eviction; they were bloodily crushed in 1832 by
regular troops, including Lieutenant Jefferson Davis of Mississippi
6. In Florida the Seminole Indians, joined by run-away slaves, retreated to the swampy
Everglades and for seven years, they waged a bitter guerrilla war that took the lives of some
fifteen hundred soldiers; the spirit of the Seminoles was broken in 1837 when the American field
commander seized their leader, Osceola, under a flag of truce
7. The war dragged on for give more years but the Seminoles were doomed and some fled
deeper into the Everglades, but about four-fifths of them were moved to Oklahoma
I. The Bank War
1. President Jackson distrusted monopolistic banking and over-big businesses, as did his
followers; he came to share the prejudices of his own West against the Bank of the US
a. The national government minted gold and silver coins in the mid-19th century but did
not issue paper money; paper notes were printed by private banks and their value fluctuated with
the health of the bank and the amount of money printed, giving private bankers considerable
power over the nations economy
b. No bank in American had more power than the Bank of the United States; in ways the
bank acted like a branch of governmentit was the principal depository for the funds of the
Washington government and controlled much of the nations gold/silver
c. A source of credit/stability, the bank was an important part of the expanding economy
2. But the Bank of the United States was a private institution, accountable not to the people,
but to its elite circle of moneyed investors; its president Nicholas Biddle held immenseand to
many unconstitutionalamount of power over the nations financial affairs
3. Enemies of the Bank dubbed him Czar Nicolas I and called bank a hydra of corruption
4. To some the banks very existence seemed to sin against the egalitarian credo of American
democracy; the conviction formed the deepest source of Jacksons opposition; the Bank also won
no friends in the West by foreclosing on many western farms and draining tribute into eastern
coffersprofit, not public service, was its first priority
5. The Bank War erupted in 1832 when Daniel Webster and Henry Clay presented Congress with
a bill to renew the Bank of the United States charter (would not expire until 1836)
a. Clay pushed for renewal early to make it an election issue in 1832; Clays scheme was to ram
a recharter bill through Congress and then send it on to the White House
b. If Jackson signed it, he would alienate his worshipful western followers
c. If he vetoed it, as seemed certain, he would presumably lose the presidency in the forthcoming
election by alienating the wealthy and influential groups in the East
6. The recharter bill slid through Congress but was killed by a scorching veto from Jackson; the
Old Hero declared the monopolistic bank to be unconstitutional; of course the Supreme Court
had declared it constitutional in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland
7. Jacksons veto message reverberated with constitutional consequences; it not only squashed
the bank bill but vastly amplified the power of the presidencies; all previous vetoes had rested
almost exclusively on questions of constitutionality but Jackson essentially argued that he was
vetoing the bill because he found it harmful to the nation
J. Old Hickory Wallops Clay in 1832
1. Clay and Jackson were the chief gladiators in the looming electoral combat; the grizzled old
general, who had earlier favored one term for a president and rotation in office, was easily
persuaded by his cronies not to rotate himself out of office
a. The Old Heros adherents again raised the hickory pole and bellowed, Jackson Forever: Go
the Whole Hog; Clays admirers shouted, Freedom and Clay
b. Novel features made the campaign of 1832 especially memorable; for the first time, a thirdparty entered the filedthe newborn Anti-Masonic party, which opposed the influence and
fearsome secrecy of the Masonic Order (force in New York)
c. The Anti-Masons appealed to long-standing American suspicions of secret societies, which
they condemned as citadels of privilege and monopoly; but since Jackson himself was a Mason
and gloried in his membership, it was an anti-Jackson party
d. The Anti-Masons also attracted support from many evangelical Protestant groups seeking to
use political power to effect moral and religious reforms
2. A further novelty of the presidential contest in 1832 was the calling of national nominating
conventions to name candidates; the Anti-Masons and a group of National Republic added still
another innovation when they adopted formal platforms, publicizing their positions on issues
Henry Clay and his National Republicans enjoyed advantages
a. Ample funds flowed into their campaign chest; most of the newspaper editors, some of
them bought with Middles bank loans, wrote badly about Jackson
b. Yet Jackson, idol of the masses, easily defeated the big-money Kentuckian; a Jacksonian
wave again swept over the West and South, surged into Pennsylvania and New York, and even
washed into rock-ribbed New England (219 to 49)
K. Burying Biddles Bank
1. Its charter denied, the Bank of the United States was due to expire in 1836 but Jackson was
not one to let the financial octopus die in peace; he was convinced that he now had a mandate
from voters for its extermination and feared that Biddle might force a recharter
a. Jackson decided in 1833 to bury the bank for good by removing federal deposits from its
vaults; he proposed depositing no more funds with Biddle and gradually shrinking existing
deposits by using them to defray the day-to-day expenses of the government
b. Removing the deposits involved nasty complications; presidents closest advisers
opposed this unnecessary, possibly unconstitutional, and certainly vindictive policy
c. Jackson was forced to reshuffle his cabinet twice before he could find a secretary of the
Treasury who would bend to his iron will; a desperate Biddle called in his banks loans, hoping
to illustrate the banks importance by producing a minor financial crisis
d. A number of wobblier banks were driven to the wall by Biddles Panic, but Jacksons
resolution was firm; but the death of the Bank of the United States left a financial vacuum in the
American economy and kicked off a lurching cycle of booms and busts
2. Surplus federal funds were placed in several dozen state institutionsthe so-called pet
banks, chosen for their pro-Jackson sympathies; without a central bank in control, the pet banks
and smaller wildcat banks flooded the country with paper money
3. Jackson tried to rein in the runaway economy in 1836; wildcat currency had become so
unreliable, especially in the West, that Jackson authorized the Treasury to issue a Specie
Circulara decree that required all public lands be purchased with hard money
4. This drastic step slammed the brakes on the speculative boom, a neck-snapping change of
direction that contributed to a financial panic and crash in 1837
5. His successor would have to deal with the damage of the financial panic and crisis
4. The favorite son was General William Henry Harrison, the hero of the Battle of
Tippecanoe, the schemes of the Whigs availed to nothing, however
5. Van Buren, squired into office by the close popular vote but by the comfortable margin of
170 to 124 votes (for all the Whigs combined) in the Electoral College
N. Big Woes for the Little Magician
1. Martin Van Buren, eighth president, was the first to be born under the American flag
2. An accomplished strategist and spoils manthe wizard of Albanyhe was also a
statesman of wide experience in both legislative and administrative life
3. From the outset the new president labored under sever handicaps
a. As a machine-made candidate, he incurred the resentment of many Democratsthose
who objected to having a bastard politician smuggled into office behind Jackson
b. Mild-mannered Martin Van Buren seemed to rattle in the military boots of his testy
predecessor; the people felt let down and Van Buren inherited the Jacksons enemies
c. Van Burens four years overflowed with toil and trouble; a rebellion in Canada in 1837
stirred up ugly incidents along the northern frontier and threatened to trigger war with Britain;
the president attempted to play a neutral game
d. The antislavery agitators in the North were in full cry; among other grievances, they
were condemning the prospective annexation of Texas; worst of all, Jackson bequeathed to Van
Buren the makings of a searing depressionhard times ordinarily blight the reputation of the
president and Van Buren was no exception
O. Depression Doldrums and the Independent Treasury
1. The panic of 1837 was a financial sickness of the times; its basic cause was rampant
speculation prompted by a mania of get-rich0quickismgamblers in western land s were doing a
land-office business on borrowed capital, much of it the shaky currency of wildcat banks
the speculative craze spread to canal, roads, railroads, and slaves
2. But speculation alone did not cause the crash; Jacksonian finance, including the Bank War
and the Specie Circular, gave an additional jolt to an already teetering structure
a. Failures of wheat crops, ravaged by the Hessian fly, deepened the distress
b. Grain prices were forced so high that mobs in New York City Stormed warehouses and
broke open flour barrels, three weeks before Van Buren took the oath
c. Financial stringency abroad likewise endangered Americas economic house of cards; late in
1836 the failure of two prominent British banks created tremors, and these in turn caused British
investors to call in foreign loansresulting pinch in the United States, combined with other
setbacks, heralded the beginning of the panic
d. Europes economic distresses have often become Americas distresses, for every major
American financial panic has been affected by conditions overseas
3. Hardship was acute and widespread; American banks collapsed by the hundreds, including
some pet banks, which carried down with them several millions in govt funds; commodity
prices drooped, sales of public lands fell off, and customs revenues dried
4. Factories closed their doors and unemployed workers milled in the streets
5. The Whigs came forward with proposals for active government remedies for the economys
ills; they called for the expansion of bank credit, higher tariffs, and subsidies for internal
improvements but Van Buren spurned all such ideas (shackled by Jackson)
6. The beleaguered Van Buren tried to apply vintage Jacksonian medicine to the ailing economy
through his controversial Divorce Bill; convinced that some of the financial fever was fed by
the injection of federal funds into private banks, he championed the principle of Divorcing the
government from banking altogether
7. By establishing a so-called independent treasury, the government could lock its surplus money
in vaults in several of the larger cities; government funds would thus be safe, but they would also
be denied to the banking system as reserves (lest credit resources)
8. Van Burens divorce scheme was never highly popular; his fellow Democrats only
supported it lukewarmly and the Whigs condemned it primarily because it squelched their hopes
for a revived Bank of the United Stateafter a prolonged struggled, Independent Treasury Bill
passed Congress in 1840 but was repealed in the next year (reappeared)
P. Gone to Texas
1. Americans, greedy for land, continued to covet the cast expanse of Texas, which the United
States had abandoned to Spain when acquiring Florida in 1819; the Spanish authorities wanted to
populate this unpeopled area but Mexico won its independence
2. A new regime in Mexico City thereupon concluded arrangements in 1823 for granting a huge
tract of land to Stephen Austin, with the understanding that he would bring into Texas three
hundred American familiesthey were to be of Roman Catholic faith
a. Two stipulations were largely ignored; hardy Texas pioneers remained Americans at heart
(didnt become Mexicanized) and resented the trammels imposed by a foreign government
they were especially annoyed by the presence of Mexican soldiers
b. Energetic and prolific, Texan-Americans numbered about thirty thousand by 1835; most
of them were law-abiding, God-fearing people, but some of them, had left the States only one
or two jumps ahead of the sheriff (G.T.T. Gone to Texas)
3. Among the adventurers were Davy Crockett, the famous rifleman, and Jim Bowie, the
presumed inventor of the murderous knife that bears his name; a distinguished latecomer and
leader was an ex-governor of Tennessee, Sam Houston
4. The pioneer individualists who came to Texas were not easy to push around; friction
rapidly increased between Mexicans and Texans over issues such as slavery, immigration, and
local rights; slavery was a particularly touchy topic
5. Mexico emancipated its slaves in 1830 and prohibited the further importation of slaves
into Texas, as well as further colonization by troublesome Americans
6. When Stephen Austin went to Mexico City in 1833 to negotiate these differences with the
Mexican government, the dictator Santa Anna clapped him in jail and the explosion final came in
1835 when Santa Anna wiped out all local rights and started to raise an army
Q. The Lone Star Rebellion
1. Early in 1836 the Texans declared their independence, unfurled their Lone Star flag, and
named Sam Houston commander in chief; Santa Anna, swept ferociously into Texas
a. Trapping a band of nearly two hundred Texans at the Alamo in San Antonio, he wiped
them out to a man after a thirteen-day siege
b. Colonel W. B. Travis had declared, I shall never surrender nor retreat. Victory or
Death; a short time later, a band of about 400 defeated the American volunteers, having thrown
down their arms at Goliad, were butchered as pirates
c. All these operations further delayed the Mexican advance and galvanized American
opposition; slain heroes like Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, well known in life, became
legendary in deathTexan war cries swept up into the United States
2. General Sam Houstons small army retreated to the east, luring Santa Anna to San Jacinto
(near Houston); the Mexicans numbered about 1,300 while the Texans about 900
a. Suddenly on April 21, 1836, Houston turned; taking full advantage of the Mexican
siesta, the Texans wiped out the pursuing force and captured Santa Anna
b. The dictator was forced to sign two treaties; by their terms he agreed to withdraw
Mexican troops and to recognize the Rio Grande as the extreme SW border of Texas; when
released, the repudiated the agreement as illegal because it was extorted
3. These events put the U.S. government in a sticky situation; the Texans could hardly have won
their independence without the help in men and supplies from their American cousin
a. The Washington government, as the Mexicans bitterly complained, had a solemn obligation
under international law to enforce its leaky neutrality statutes
b. But American public opinion, favorable to the Texans, openly nullified the existing
legislation; the federal authorities were powerless to act and President Jackson (in 1837)
extended the right hand of recognition to the Lone Star Republic
4. Many Texans wanted not just recognition of their independence but outright union with the
United States; the radiant Texas bride petitioned for annexation in 1837a. Uncle Sam was jerked
back by the black hand of the slavery issue; antislavery crusaders in the North were opposing
annexation with increasing vehemence; they contended that the whole scheme was merely a
conspiracy of southern slavocracy
b. At first glance, a slavery plot charge seemed plausible; most of the early settlers in Texas, as
well as American volunteers during the revolution, had come from the states of the South and
Southwest; but scholars have concluded that the settlement of Texas was merely the normal and
inexorable march of the westward movement
c. Most of the immigrants came from the South and Southwest because they were closer
5. Many Texans, still, were slaveholders and admitting Texas would mean enlarging slavery
R. Log Cabins and Hard Cider of 1840
1. Martin Van Buren was renominated by the Democrats in 1840 without enthusiasm; the party
had no acceptable alternative to what the Whigs called Martin Van Ruin
2. The Whigs, hungering for the spoils of office, learned from their mistake in 1836 and the
Whigs united behind one candidate, Ohios William Henry Harrison; he was not the ablest
statesman (Webster or Clay) but he was believed to be their ablest vote-getter
a. The aging hero, was known for his successes against Indians and the British at the Battles of
Tippecanoe and the Thames; Old Tippecanoe was nominated primarily because he was
issueless and enemy-lessa tested recipe for electoral success
b. John Tyler of Virginia was selected as vice-presidential running mate (afterthought)
3. The Whigs published no official platform, hoping to sweep their hero into office with a frothy
huzza-for-Harrison campaign reminiscent of Jacksons triumph in 1828a. A Democratic editor
played directly into Whig hands; stupidly insulting the West, he lampooned Harrison as an
impoverished old farmer who should be content with a pension, a log cabin, and a barrel of hard
cider (poor westerners champagne)
b. Whigs adopted honest hard cider and sturdy log cabin as symbols of their campaign;
Harrisonites portrayed him as the poor Farmer of North Bend who had been called from his
cabin to drive corrupt Jackson spoilsmen from the presidential palace
c. They denounced Van Buren as a supercilious aristocrat; the Whig campaign was a
master piece of inane hoopla; log cabins were dished up in every conceivable form
d. In truth Harrison was from one of the First Families of Virginia, he was not povertystricken, he did not live in a one-room log cabin, but rather in a mansion; he did not drink hard
cider, he did not plow his fields, but the details didnt matter
4. Harrison won by a surprising close margin in the popular vote but by an overwhelming
electoral margin of 234 to 60; Van Buren was washed out of Washington (no real issues)
S. Politics for the People
1. The election of 1840 conclusively demonstrated two major changes in American politics
since the Era of Good Feelings; the first was the triumph of a populist democratic style
a. Democracy had been something of a taint in the days of the lordly Federalists
b. But by the 1840s, aristocracy was the taint, and democracy was respectable; politicians
were now forced to unbend and curry favor with the voting masses
c. In truth, most high political offices continued to be filled by leading citizens but now
these wealthy and prominent men had to forsake all social pretensions and cultivate the common
touch if they hoped to win the presidential elections
2. The common man was at last moving to the center of the national political stage; instead of
old divine right of kings, America was now bowing to the divine right of the people
T. The Two-Party System
1. The second dramatic change resulting from the 1840 election was the formation of a
vigorous durable two-party system; the Jeffersonians had been so successful in absorbing the
programs of their Federalist opponents that a full-blown two-party system had never truly
emerged in the subsequent Era of Good Feelings
2. The idea had prevailed that parties of any sort smacked of conspiracy and faction and
were injurious to the health of the body politic in a virtuous republic; by 1840, political parties
had full come of age, a lasting legacy of Andrew Jacksons tenaciousness
3. Both national parties, the Democrats and the Whigs grew out of the rich soil of Jeffersonian republicanism and each laid claim to different aspects of the republic inheritance
a. Jacksonian Democrats glorified the liberty of the individual and were fiercely on guard against
the inroads of privilege into government
b. Whigs trumpeted the natural harmony of society and the value of community, and were
willing to use government to realize their objectives
c. Whigs also berated those leadersand they considered Jackson to be onewhose appeals to
self-interest fostered conflict among individuals, classes, or sections
d. Democrats clung to states rights and federal restraint in social and economic affairs as their
basic doctrines while the Whigs tended to favor a renewed national bank, protective tariffs,
internal improvements, public schools, and increasingly, moral reforms such as the prohibition of
liquor and eventually the abolition of slavery
4. The two parties were thus separated by real differences of philosophy and policy; but they also
had such in common; both were mass-based parties that tired deliberately to mobilize as many
votes as possible for their cause; although it is true that Democrats tended to be more humble
folk and Whigs more prosperous, both parties commanded the loyalties of all kinds of Americas,
from all social classes and in all sections
5. The social diversity of the two parties fostered horse-trading compromises within each part
that prevented either from assuming extreme or radical positions; by the same token, the
geographical diversity of the two parties slowed the emergence of purely sectional political
partiesit temporarily suppressed, though compromise, the issue of slavery