The Case for Jacksonian Democracy
Jackson's supporters argued that the prominent features of Jacksonian Democracy-universal
white male suffrage and mass political participation, the spoils system, increased executive power,
westward expansion and limited government-all carried the common thread of a struggle for
ordinary citizens to overcome an entrenched aristocracy of autocrats. Jackson personified that
struggle, supporters declared, and his policies embodied the true character of the American
masses. "The Jacksonian cause is the cause of democracy and the people, against a corrupt and
abandoned aristocracy," declared Boston Globe editor Francis Blair.
According to Jacksonians, inequalities of wealth and power that threatened democracy were the
direct result of special privileges afforded under the American System. Labor produced all the
true wealth,in society, they asserted; therefore, the profits enjoyed by the financial aristocracy
were made by manipulating money rather than performing any real work. "Bankers and
capitalists enrich no part of our country, nor improve no part of its soil," wrote one Democratic
spokesman, "and many of them ... are mere drones in society, that live upon the labor of the more
industrious of the hive." Society was based on the conflict between labor and capital, Jacksonians
claimed, not a supposed "harmony of interests" preached by proponents of the American System.
Universal white male suffrage was the first step in overcoming the corrupt aristocracy entrenched
in government, Jacksonians believed. Property and taxpaying requirements for voting and office­
holding were impediments devised by the propertied class, they charged, that intended to exclude
the popular masses from the decision-making process of government. Once that suffrage was
obtained, Jacksonians knew the populist campaign strategies of the new Democratic party to "get
out the vote" would ensure that popular will was translated into representative self-government.
Political patronage under the spoils system, Jackson claimed, ensured that public participation
would extend not only to the polls, but also to positions in government. By appointing political
allies, Jackson argued, he would open the civil service rolls to ordinary citizens. And by purging
rival incumbents, he would sweep inefficient and corrupt officials from the federal bureaucracy,
Jackson reasoned. In general, he believed, anyone was capable of holding public office; thus, his
appointees were just as qualified as any other civil servant. In his first inaugural address, Jackson
announced his intention to address "those causes which have disturbed the rightful course of
appointment and have placed or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands."
Furthermore, if political support was known to translate into civil service jobs, Jackson asserted,
citizens would be more likely to participate in elections, which in turn would strengthen the two­
party system. Jackson countered critics of the spoils system by claiming that he simply had the
right, through popular mandate, to appoint whomever he deemed appropriate.
Political patronage was but one example of how Jackson redefined the power of the executive,
increasing the power of the president more than any of his predecessors. Because the president
was the only nationally elected official, Jackson reasoned, he most closely represented the will of
the people. Therefore, he concluded, the president not only had the right to exercise his powers
vigorously, but the obligation to do so. By making unprecedented use of veto power-particularly
involving the policies of the American System-Jackson asserted, he was wielding the power of
the masses to strike down the enemies of the masses.
In limiting government through use of the veto, Jacksonians said, the president was adhering to
the intent of the framers of the Constitution. "That this was intended to be a government of
limited and specific, and not general, powers must be admitted by all, and it is our duty to
preserve for it the character intended by its framers," Jackson stated in his first congressional
address. He continued, "The great mass oflegislation relating to our internal affairs was intended
to be left where the Federal Convention found it-in the state governments." Summarizing the
creed of Jackson's party, the Democratic Review put on its masthead the slogan, "The best
government is that which governs least."
Government involvement in the economy inevitably led to inequality, declared Jacksonians, thus
laissez faire ("leave alone") capitalism should be the only guiding principle of the U.S. economy.
Government should not be involved in social issues either, Jacksonians insisted. A firm line
should be drawn between public and private matters, they believed, so that all efforts to blur the
distinction between church and state-carried out by religiously motivated social reformers like
the Whigs-should be resisted at all costs. Social reform should be left up to private groups, they
concluded, not an interventionist government.
Jacksonians disputed charges that Jackson hypocritically espoused democracy for the common
man while trampling the rights of minority groups. They argued that racial distinctions were valid
because, unlike artificial class divisions, racial distinctions were based on natural inequality. "The
signers of the Declaration of Independence had no reference to negroes at all when they declared
all men to be created equal," insisted Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas (Illinois). "They did
not mean [the] negro, nor the savage Indians, nor the Fejee Islanders, nor any other barbarous
race. They were speaking of white men."
Furthermore, moderates like Jackson believed that institutions such as slavery should be
tolerated because the sovereignty of the states outweighed any legitimate concerns over the legal
status of slaves. In other words, even if such leaders personally condemned slavery, they argued,
the federal government did not have the constitutional right to prevent states from instituting or
maintaining slavery if they chose. In fact, Jackson himself perceived the slavery controversy as a
false issue; he accused both abolitionists and southern radicals of merely seeking to divide the
Union to serve their own political agendas.
Jackson had a similar hands-off approach to Indian Removal. He claimed that intervention in
conflicts between states and tribes, like the Cherokee controversy, would be an intrusion on state
affairs. Removal, Jackson said, was necessary to ensure both the well-being of Native Americans
and the success of white settlers. In his farewell address, Jackson articulated his paternalistic
approach towards the Indian people. "While the safety and comfort of our own citizens have been
greatly promoted by their removal, the philanthropist will rejoice that the remnant of that iU­
fated race has been at length placed beyond the reach of injury or oppression, and that the
paternal care of the General Government will hereafter watch over them and protect them," he
stated.
Finally, historians sympathetic to Jacksonian Democracy readily admit that universal white male
suffrage was an exclusionary and imperfect form of democracy. But he insisted that it was a step
in the right direction. Jacksonian Democracy was grounded in principles of equality, they argued,
that in time would facilitate the extension of suffrage to all Americans.
The Case Against Jacksonian Democracy
Critics of Jackson insisted that the term "Jacksonian Democracy" was a contradiction in terms.
Jacksonian Democracy was, in fact, largely undemocratic, they argued, and the substantial
democratic gains that were made could not even be attributed to Jackson himself. Opponents of
Jackson believed him to be acting like a monarch more interested in political concerns than true
principles of democracy. "Except an enormous fabric of executive power for himself, the president
has built up nothing, constructed nothing, and will leave no enduring monument of his
administration," Clay asserted.
While the era did witness an extension of civil rights, critics contended, the only people who
benefited were white men. Furthermore, those critics insisted, not only were women, slaves, freed
blacks and Native Americans excluded from that democratic groundswell, they actually suffered
as a result of its narrow focus on white male supremacy. Critics noted that women were confined
to the new domestic sphere as a direct result of men being free to pursue public office and the
benefits of the Market Revolution, and that westward expansion witnessed a surge of white
settlement only at the expense of displaced Indians and the expansion of African slavery within
newly acquired territories. If Jacksonians were so committed to egalitarian principles, opponents
argued, how could they oppose black suffrage, support Indian Removal and allow Southern states
to continue slavery?
Jackson did not even have a direct influence on many of the democratic gains of the era he
supposedly represented, his critics insisted. He did not initiate the suffrage movement-which
was a widespread and spontaneous phenomenon within state and local governments-but only
reaped its benefits by capitalizing on a "man of the people" persona, they argued. Moreover,
opponents pointed out, Jackson was something of a Tennessee aristocrat himself, having acquired
a large personal fortune and more than 100 slaves by the time he ran for president. Thus, they
charged, Jackson was by no means the common man he portrayed himself to be.
In fact, as president, Jackson became more of a threat to representative democracy than its
protector, opponents alleged. The entire Whig party resulted from a common opposition to "King
Andrew I," as they called Jackson, and his slew of vetoes. Critics noted that he made 12 vetoes
altogether, more than all of his predecessors combined (10). In a speech to the Senate in 1834,
Clay forcefully condemned such executive tyranny":
It
He goes for destruction, universal destruction; and it seems to be his greatest ambition to efface
and obliterate every trace ofthe wisdom ofhis predecessors .... The Indians and Indian policy,
internal improvements, the colonial trade, the Supreme Court, Congress, the banks, have
successively experienced the attacks ofhis haughty and imperious spirit.
Opponents accused Jackson of breaking with the long-established role of the president, whose
essential duty was to execute the law made by other government branches, not use his position to
undermine legislative and judicial authority. By downplaying the separation of powers, opponents
argued, Jackson dangerously consolidated the power of government in the hands of one man.
"According to the doctrines put forth by the President. although Congress may have passed a law,
and although the Supreme Court may have pronounced it constitutional, yet it is, nevertheless, no
law at all, if he, in his good pleasure, sees fit to deny it effect," Senator Daniel Webster (Anti­
Jacksonian, Massachusetts) argued. "No president and no public man ever before advanced such
doctrines in the fact of the nation. There never before was a moment in which any President
would have been tolerated in asserting such a claim to despotic power."
Jackson's abuse of executive power was most evident within his spoils system, critics contended.
While some dismissals were necessary, they said, the sweeping fashion in which he appointed his
close political allies was reprehensible. Jackson's charges of corruption within previous
administrations fell flat, opponents pointed out, when it was revealed that many of his own
appointees, in fact, openly paid for their posts with campaign contributions. The rampant
partisanship of his appointment process, critics charged, led to a general decline in ethical
standards, abandoning the culture of civility that had previously governed national politics.
The Whig party platform contradicted Jackson on almost every issue regarding the role of
government. The federal government should promote a "harmony of interests" between capital
and labor, Whigs contended, and the class warfare of the Jacksonians was divisive and harmful to
the nation. The government should also take a central role in improving the morality of society,
Whigs insisted, through social initiatives like prison reform and anti-vice policies like alcohol
prohibition. Furthermore, the unchecked territorial expansion of Manifest Destiny should be
discouraged, they argued, so the country could fully and efficiently develop the land it already
owned before recklessly grasping for more.
In fact, opponents of Jackson regularly charged him with ideological inconsistency regarding
limited government. While espousing states' rights, critics pointed out, Jackson personally
threatened to invade South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis, but when it came to
upholding a Supreme Court ruling against Georgia in the Cherokee controversy, Jackson refused
to comply. The Maysville Road veto, another of Jackson's supposed victories for limited
government, contradicted a series of other internal improvement projects he later approved in
order to boost his popularity, critics charged. The difference, according to one historian, was that
Jackson "seemed to rely on a simple formula-if a public works project would work for him and
the Democrats, he was for it; if it promised to benefit his opponents, he was against it." Political
expediency was the driving force of the Jackson administration, critics asserted, not political principle.